Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] from Hervé-Pierre Lambert

Hi Sergio and Herve,
just complementing that Marcelo Mercante has actually written his
Ph.D. Thesis on the subject of Ayhuasca.
Guto Nobrega.

On 10 Feb 2009, at 16:26, sergio basbaum wrote:

> Dear Herve,
>
> Thank for your interest in my work,
>
> (Please forgive me for writing such a long reply, but the questions
> demand
> it...)
>
> As an artist, my own work gravitates around sound (I have musical
> background
> and play and compose what is more or less understood as "Brazilian
> jazz"),
> technology and images (I have a bachelor degree in cinema). This
> double
> background was probably what has lead me into synesthesia, although
> when I
> was younger and used some forbidden substances I had some synesthetic
> experiences, and I still fell a light "vowel-to-color" synesthesia,
> and some
> synesthetic feelings about music also.
>
> However, the works I've done in the last years -- they're not many,
> since we
> have to work a lot at the university and there's not enough time to
> develop
> certain projects -- are related to the impact of technological
> mediation in
> our societies. So I prepared a performance which I have presented
> several
> times, with 90 phrases of 10 seconds projected on a screen, in order
> to make
> a presentation of exactly 15 minutes discussing what I name the
> "omnicalculability"of our times; and I did also an interactive video
> -- with
> the colaboration of Giuliano Obici, who has written some Pure Data
> code --
> called "Meus passos nunca foram dados", what is very hard to
> translate to
> English, since in Portuguese "Data" and "given" can be related to
> the word
> "dados", but in French could maybe work: "Mes passes ne seront pas
> jamais
> donées"; it is also a discussion of art in technological societies
> during a
> walk in a park in Amsterdam. This has also been presented sometimes in
> Brazil and indeed there are some images, abstract textures, mixed with
> Luciano Berio's sounds which can be thought of as synesthetic.
>
> I wouldn't say there's something in Brazil similar to what
> Symbolists or
> Huysmans have done. However, I do think that the works created by
> Lygia
> Clark and Helio Oiticica in the 1960s, 70s and 80s do open the paths
> to
> supersede the domination of the eye in modern art, and to bring back
> not
> only the body as a whole, but the many senses. I usually use these
> works to
> discuss how modernity has severed the senses (Jonathan Crary has
> written
> beautifully about it), but that separation was so artificial that it
> could
> not last long, so along the 1950-60s mixed-media and multimediatic
> works
> start to emerge, and and it is possible to connect all this already
> to the
> emergenge of a digital culture (Oiticica called his works, for
> example, with
> names which ressembled a data base: "P1", "P2"). British author Guy
> Brett
> mentions the very syncretic sensoriality and the presence of the
> body in
> Brazilian culture as relevant for both Helio and Lygia have done
> what they
> did. So, the paths opened by HO and LC, if not synesthetic in the
> terms of
> the Symbolists, or maybe those of the American film-makers of the
> 1950s
> (John and James Whitney, for example), are synesthetic in terms of
> bringing
> the senses together in a body experience in which they cannot be
> separated
> at all ("The senses translate each other without the need of an
> interpreter", as Merleau-Ponty once said).
>
> A very interesting case is the composer Jorge Antunes, who has
> written an
> amazing little book called "A correspondência entre os sons e as
> cores"
> ("The correspondence between sounds and colors"), issued in 1982,
> and which
> presents his own theory of such correspondences, in terms of
> ressonances of
> optical and visual nerves. I loved this book when I read it, and my
> work
> certainly is indebted to it, although I took different directions
> later. And
> composer Flo Menezes has dedicated some works to the colors, very
> recently.
>
>
> In the contemporary Brazilian digital culture, something seems to be
> happening, related probably to the way by which digital apparatuses
> make it
> very easy to translate sounds in colors and vice-versa. It is
> interesting
> that every month I receive emails from students that are looking for
> my
> short book, which is not available anymore, unfortunately.
>
> About ethnological studies, the best works I've found so far come from
> Classen and Howes. They have been developing a very beautiful series
> of
> books, written or edited by them, dealing with the senses. Howes has a
> beautifull article called "Hyperesthesia, or, The sensual Logic of
> Late
> Capitalism", but this has nothing to do with Amazon tribes. Classen's
> chapter about the Desana are the most explicit reference to
> synesthesia I
> came through up to now. She quotes works by G. Reichel-Dolmatoff about
> Amazon groups as her main reference on these topics.
>
> As for Ayhuasca and other chemicals indeed we have many people doing
> research about this here. Large works including the contribuitions of
> different authors are now being issued bringing together the efforts
> of many
> researchers. All content is probably in Portuguese, but I can find
> out more
> about these books if you may be interested. I have a personal friend,
> Marcelo Mercante, who is an anthropologist who has been working for
> years
> with a sect called "Barquinha", in the South-Amazon, who are
> ayhuasca users.
>
>
> Last year, we've staged a symposium about the sincretism of the
> senses. Dave
> McConville, who is in this list has been with us, along with the
> people from
> the Plannetary Collegium, directed by British artist and theorist Roy
> Ascott, and some Brazilian authors. Some interesting discussions
> happened,
> on many topics around the sensorium.
>
> best vibes from Brazil
>
> s.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:39 PM, herve pierre lambert
> <hplambert@hotmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Dear Sergio
>>
>> As an artist, does your work have anything to do with synesthesia,
>> or art
>> cognition?
>>
>> Does it exist in Brazil as in Europe a tradition of metaphorical
>> synesthesia, like in the so-called symbolist poetry (Baudelaire,
>> Rimbaud) or
>> in the novel (Huysmans) or later in the Dutch poetry?
>>
>> Do you have any recommendations of ethnologic studies, I mean
>> ethnologists
>> who really studied synesthesia as metaphor or as neurological
>> phenomenon in
>> Amazonian tribes.
>>
>> I used to work a little bit on Narby hypothesis and Narby effect.
>> Do exist
>> special reports written by ethnologists on relations between
>> ayahuasca and
>> synesthetic impressions, apart from Classen?
>>
>> HPL
>> hplambert@hotmail.com
>>
>>
>> Mein GlückSeit ich des Suchens müde ward,Erlernte ich das
>> Finden.Seit mir
>> ein Wind hielt Widerpart,Segl' ich mit allen Winden.Ashita wa
>> ashita no kazé
>> ga fuku> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 14:38:17 -0200> From: sbasbaum@gmail.com
>> >
>> To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr> Subject: Re:
>> [Yasmin_discussions] from Hervé-Pierre Lambert> > Dear Hervé-
>> Pierre,> >
>> Thank you very much for quoting my article. When we write, we never
>> know
>> who> will read, so we always get surprised when we realize people
>> do read
>> what we> write. Indeed, I have been working on some ideas on
>> synesthesia and
>> culture,> and in the last meeting in Hamilton a definetely felt
>> that some
>> kind of> approach which takes into account the question of culture is
>> needed.> > How could somebody talk experiment grapheme-colour
>> synesthesia in
>> a> pre-literate society, for example? These and other questions
>> have led me
>> to> draft sometings on this topic on the last months.> > The
>> overstressing
>> of vision, the "imperialism" of the eye, on our culture> could be
>> suggested
>> to be in a certain way "colonizing" the other senses, as> to the
>> point of,
>> for some people, emerge as an experience. But this are just>
>> intuitions by
>> now.> > On the other hand, I like very much Van Campen's notion of
>> synesthesia being> something "in between". This dialogues very well
>> with the
>> notion that> synesthesia is deeply related to contemporary
>> technological
>> culture, in> which all strictly disciplinary thinking seems to be
>> unable to
>> deal with a> lerger understanding of life and meaning.> > all the
>> best from
>> Brazil,> > s.> > On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:24 AM, herve pierre
>> lambert <
>> hplambert@hotmail.com> > wrote:> > >> >> > On the internet, there
>> is an
>> interesting article easy to encounter, written> > by Sergio Roclaw
>> Basbaum,
>> "Consciousness and Perception: The Point of> > Experience and the
>> Meaning of
>> the World We Inhabit". He claims that "> > consciousness is
>> aculturally
>> shaped phenomena, and that any conception that> > may emerge about
>> it from a
>> traditional Western scientific approach cannot go> > further than
>> suggest a
>> model of consciousness that, at best, can correspond> > to the
>> experience of
>> consciousness in the culture in which this very> > specific way of
>> dealing
>> with reality is embedded."> >> > The anthropological dimension of
>> synesthesia - as a metaphor or as> > neurological phenomenon- is
>> usually
>> avoided or forgotten. Van Campen> > alluded to this reality in
>> "Synthetic
>> Indians" with a commentary on the book> > World of sense by Constance
>> Classen. Basbaum developed this idea of a> > synesthesia phenomenon
>> conditioned by culture in a philosophical reflexion> > using
>> references to
>> Classen and Flusser. The last year I had told that we> > needed
>> informations
>> on synesthesia in the different cultures of the> > multicultural
>> Mediterranean world. The emergency of an anthropology focused> > in
>> the
>> sensory worlds of different cultures enabled to put into
>> perspective> > the
>> western association between seeing and meaning. Quotation from the
>> same> >
>> article by Basbaum:> >> > "Different cultures emphasis in other
>> senses gives
>> birth to cosmologies> > based, for example:> > - in thermal
>> sensations, like
>> the Tzotzil's of Chiapas, Mexico;> > - in olfactory sensations,
>> like the
>> Ongee's of Little Andaman Island, in> > Bengal Bay;> > - in a highly
>> synesthetic cosmology, like the Desana's of Amazon, which> > make
>> meaning of
>> their world based on multisensory correspondences> > experimented
>> under
>> hallucinogenic plants trance; (Classen, 1993: Chapter 6)> > - in
>> such an
>> emphasis on aural experience, like the Kaluli people of> > Bosavi,
>> as to
>> "reckon time and space by reference to auditory cues and> >
>> entertain a
>> fundamentally acoustic view of the structure of their physical> >
>> and social
>> universe." (Howes, 2003:xvii)> > These radically different sensorial
>> arrangements (and there are many> > more), the meanings they
>> ascribe to the
>> world and the ways of dealing with> > life that emerge from them,
>> make
>> reasonable for us to talk not anymore about> > a "point of view",
>> typical of
>> Western culture, but of a "point of> > experience", the kind of
>> hierarchy of
>> the sensorium that structures> > experiences and cosmologies in
>> different
>> cultures."> >> > Hervé-Pierre Lambert> >> >> > Mein GlückSeit ich des
>> Suchens müde ward,Erlernte ich das Finden.Seit mir> > ein Wind hielt
>> Widerpart,Segl' ich mit allen Winden.Ashita wa ashita no kazé> > ga
>> fuku> >
>> _________________________________________________________________>
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>> > > --
>>> -- Prof. Dr. Sérgio Roclaw Basbaum> -- Coord. Tecnologia e Mídias
>> Digitais> -- Pós-Graduação Tec.da Inteligência e Design Digital -
>> TIDD
>> (PUC-SP)> _______________________________________________>
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>> >
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>
>
>
> --
> -- Prof. Dr. Sérgio Roclaw Basbaum
> -- Coord. Tecnologia e Mídias Digitais
> -- Pós-Graduação Tec.da Inteligência e Design Digital - TIDD (PUC-SP)
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