Feb 15:
Due dates: CV+ Portfolio + Card and Poster ideas for the show.

Possible Forms for the Design Solution

My ideas are spinning. I want to do so much and there is not so much time! I feel like if I could commit to an idea in the next week or two I can take it so much further than if I let "it" keep evolving. On the other hand, I keep reading such great stuff and changing the way I state my idea/problem (slightly, but enough that the design solution seems like it would be different).

So far my ideas include:
-A poster series about what the word "sound" means, using the "If a tree falls . . ." example which use different definitions, one in each designated area (Short North, Clintonville, Bexley etc.).

-A mural, preferably projected flash video, of a "bargraph of belief" which depicts the number of people who hold different beliefs compared to the world population

-A workbook, think "Highlights for nerds," with duable activities and project ideas which will present the ideas and give the viewer and interactive experience and allowing for contemplation.
(I think that many of my ideas which I don't see as "final product ideas" could be utilized in this idea)

-Quotes by important thinkers on the subject such as Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Anton Wilson, Alfred Korzybski, Timothy Leary, Fred Allan Wolfe. etc. Presented as street art, perhaps as full scale wheatpaste of the thinker + a quote on the subject

-A book, much like that of Quentin Fiore's work with McLuhan and Fuller, which presents the ideas and examples in a graphic way. (see, The Medium is the Massage, War and Peace in the Global Village, I Seem to be a Verb)

Some "new" sketches

So, these sketches are really just for "fun." I had this idea way back in September and had talked about it a couple of times. I decided it was worth seeing a rough of idea of what they could look like. I just used some google images. The lists are basically what came to mind when I started to type them, I didn't delete or rearrange any parts of them. That said, if I were to really produce these (I imagined them as 40x60in or larger prints) I would obsess over what is included in the lists. Not sure I would keep the words "fork" and "chair" in the actual pieces.

Maybe these could be utilized in some sort of workbook or book if I go that route. Perhaps the opposing page could say, "Circle the correct one" or "What does chair/fork mean?" or "Which of these describes the pictured object?" or something like that. . .

Let me know what you think about these. Do they make sense? Are they helpful? Have they been done before (I feel like something similar must exists somewhere)?

Some More Freewriting. (b&w, abstract concepts, my greatest hope for humanity)

"Black & white" - stemming from an Aristotelian mindset (either/or mentality), this is the idea that everything IS either one way or another. This is easily observed in the idea of morals. An action either is "right" or "wrong" to most people, regardless of the individual context. However, this also seems to appear in any identification.

Words as Forms. Plato's forms are the concepts we attach to words? There seems to be a belief that the word is the thing. I say 'fork' and it implies a shape, a use or short list of uses, a color probably, and a texture perhaps to the fingers and different parts of the mouth. But fork 1 is not fork 2 is not fork 3. The differences between them being, different sources of creation, different histories (being owned by different people, used to eat different foods etc), different physical features, different locations, degrees of cleaness, - all of these seem pretty unimportant though.

When we begin to label abstract concepts [words whose meanings are up for interpretation?] (what do I mean by that word?) such as, "Hip Hop", "Justice", "Appropriate Clothing", "Christian", "Muslim", "Thief", "Nutritious," "Progress," "negative," "positive" etc. etc. etc. . . . all sorts of confusions happen which create disagreements which in many cases escalate into un-cooperativeness (think non-partisanship) with or even violence against other human beings.

How to get on the same page? is that the question? What does "progress" or "the best way for human beings to be" mean to me? A: The best thing I can imagine for human kind is the ability for every human being to pursue the deepest pleasures and aspirations her or she has, to discover their calling and achieve it- for every person to have a purpose to themselves and society as a whole. This of course requires many of things before it could ever happen, abolition of poverty, hunger, slavery, prejudice etc. I'm not imaging a utopia with nothing unfortunate or "bad" ever happening, but a situation in which no one is exploited. My greatest hope for humanity is that no one is exploited.

The Process of Abstraction in Perception.

Our old habits of evaluation, ingrained for centuries if not millenniums, must first be re-evaluated and brought up to date in accordance with modern knowledge.

A. Korzybski, in "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes"

The foundation of General Semantics

I just found this paper by Alfred Korzybski (founder of General Semantics) titled: "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes."


"When the premises of this new approach had been formulated, I found unexpectedly that they turned out to be a denial of the old "laws of thought" and the foundation for a non-Aristotelian system, the modus operandi of which I have named "General Semantics." The premises are very simple and may be stated by means of an analogy:

1. A map is not the territory. (Words are not the things they represent.)
2. A map covers not all the territory. (Words cannot cover all they represent.)
3. A map is self-reflexive. (In language we can speak about language.) "

Why We are All Map Makers - a bit of (almost) free writing

What does this whole map/territory thing mean? This won't be short.

A map, in this use of the word, means (to me, of course) a system of organization for navigating a space. Here, "space" can mean many things as well. A familar one is an aerial view (the system) of a city or state (the space). All sorts of things can be thought of as maps. Music genres work as labels which organize music*, so it can be communicated about (or navigated). A history book about the first Moon landing is a map. A diagram of a hydrogen atom is a map. An equally valid word is model. It is my belief, that most of what the human mind does, is map-making. Maps, or models, are limited- they can never contain all of the information or they would cease to be maps. So, this means that all maps are an interpretation of the territory. Different map-makers will make different maps for different purposes. A map of downtown maybe lists all of the streets, all of the restaurants, or all of the five-star restaurants, or perhaps only the donut shops. Once more, it could chart the elevation of the ground, the inner workings of the sewer system, the population, the temperature, the list goes on and on and on and on. Maps or models seem to be everything we have in a sense. Even our past would appear to be a subjective interpretation of our memory.

What's more, maps are to be read. This complicates things even further as the reader's subjective ideas/biases/conclusions/beliefs, are at work when interpreting the map, defining and organizing that map into his or her own model of the universe. How often have you and a friend been recounting a past event, when one of you says something like, "that's not how it happened, it was like this"?

The point of this is really that labels are dangerous. If we become too sure of our maps, we can justify doing foolish things. I want to create a dialogue which aids in putting our models into context in order to establish a further clarity.

That was shorter than I expected.







*The word "music," itself, being a model which serves to simplify a complex idea.