Call me old fashioned, but whole systems that express emergent
properties still do it for me - rhizomes are too horizontal for me,
however organic they may be. I think I now understand your position
better and agree one organism's extreme environment is another's
ideal habitat. That's ecology for you.
It is interesting that the Rhode Island School of Design, who to my
understanding, first coined the expression, 'extreme environments' in
their work with NAASA never consider Earth as an extreme
environment. Why? Because nobody commissioned them to!
All the best
David
PS. Regarding useful ideas on 'consciousness', it's always worth
going back to Maturana and Varela's Santiago theory.
On 4 Oct 2009, at 11:55, Simon Biggs wrote:
> Hi David
>
> My argument was not Cartesian at all. I would sugest that there is an
> emerging mind/brain/body split being created in current discussion
> around
> neuroscience and consciousness studies (whatever consciousness is?
> – I find
> that a contentious enough concept to begin with) and this presents a
> neo-Cartesian position. I would propose that rather than
> associating mind
> with the individual (body and/or brain) it might be more useful to
> regard it
> as an expanded network of agency (a more Deleuzian apprehension of
> self and
> other, where they all get a bit rhizomically mixed up). The
> physical is part
> of that (as Varela points out).
>
> I have read Varela pretty closely. His was an major contribution to
> the
> debate at the time. As for Merleau-Ponty, I've read a few of his
> books.
>
> I think you misunderstand where I am coming from – I guess I didn't
> articulate my position that well. Hope this clarifies it.
>
> My main point was that the Oextreme' is a matter of interpretation
> and not
> necessarily a function of place. Take that within a post-Derridean
> understanding of interpretation, where networks of poly-valent
> agency are at
> play, and you get to what I was trying to say.
>
> Best
>
> Simon
>
>
> Simon Biggs
>
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk
>
> Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
>
> simon@littlepig.org.uk
> www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
>
> From: David Haley <D.Haley@mmu.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 20:38:46 +0100
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] artists workng with scientists in
> extreme
> environments
>
> Dear Simon
>
> Is this not a rather Cartesian, mind/body split way of seeing
> things. Please refer to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Philosophy
> in the Flesh, or Francisco Varela's The Embodied Mind: Cognitive
> Science and Human Experience, or Maurice Merleau-Ponty's
> Phenomenology of Perception, or...
>
> All the best
>
> David
>
> On 3 Oct 2009, at 16:59, Simon Biggs wrote:
>
>> It could be asserted that exploring extreme states of mind (as
>> opposed to
>> the brain) is standard operating artists procedure (SOAP). The
>> mind is
>> arguably an imagined thing and artists routinely seek to imagine it
>> in its
>> strangest or most extreme state, whether as something isolated
>> (mind as
>> location of the individual) or networked (the mind as instantiation
>> of the
>> social being). As an artist I consciously seek to do this,
>> imagining myself
>> into a mental state. When it starts to feel dangerous that's when I
>> think I
>> might be getting somewhere.
>>
>> There is also a long history of artists who have been regarded as
>> rather
>> mad. Whether they were so because they were ill (in conventional
>> medical
>> terms – John Martin, for example - which is deeply problematic for
>> anyone of
>> a Foucauldian or Langian persuasion) or pushing their ideas to
>> extremes
>> (such that people thought them mad) or simply taking too many drugs
>> (that
>> seems to render other people mad).
>>
>> Turning back to extreme environments, artists have similarly
>> explored these,
>> even when the places they visited were either not that extreme or
>> were
>> actually imaginary. Here I am thinking of the Romantics, with
>> Caspar David
>> Friedrich or Beethoven seeking to evoke what they felt to be the
>> sublime
>> (extreme) in nature and the (extreme) states this transported them
>> to. There
>> was no need for them to go to the Moon to achieve this – although
>> perhaps in
>> our over-stimulated society this is the reason artists are seeking
>> to do
>> this. They are simply exhibiting our shared symptoms of environmental
>> disassociation.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Simon
>>
>>
>> Simon Biggs
>>
>> Research Professor
>> edinburgh college of art
>> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
>> www.eca.ac.uk
>>
>> Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
>> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
>>
>> simon@littlepig.org.uk
>> www.littlepig.org.uk
>> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>>
>>
>>
>> From: roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>
>> Reply-To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
>> Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 17:15:19 +0200
>> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
>> Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] artists workng with scientists in
>> extreme
>> environments
>>
>> yasminers
>> here is another thought- are extreme environments only
>> physical/geographical
>> exploration- or can one also explore extreme mental states ?
>>
>> yesterday i was with christian xerri who is a neuroscientist in
>> marseille
>> and
>> jim gimzewksi
>>
>> were were discussing the work that xerri does with alzheimers
>> patients
>>
>> christian's work includes looking at ways the brain re organises
>> itself after trauma
>>
>> *Curre*
>> *Research topics *
>>
>> 1. Experience-dependent malleability of somatosensory cortical
>> maps
>> during development and maturation.
>> 2. Postlesion remodeling of somatosensory maps after brain damage.
>> 3. Spatio-temporal coding of tactile inputs within cortical
>> networks.
>> 4. Biochemical and morphological mechanisms involved in
>> somatosensory map
>> reorganization.
>> 5. Elaboration and recognition of haptic and visual forms: a
>> fMRI study.
>>
>> christian's son your is an artist and art therapist and they are
>> working on
>> art science collaborations
>>
>> xerri's lab has developed interactive software tools that are used
>> to help
>> patients with impaired
>> memory etc
>>
>>
>> a related connection is how humans in extreme environments have
>> modified
>> percetion
>> , i heard a talk by michel marcelin who mentioned that at high
>> altidue
>> vision is affected ( see for instance
>> http://ajplegacy.physiology.org/cgi/pdf_extract/140/3/354 )
>>
>> so for the discussion i thought i would introduce the topic of
>> modification
>> of mental states
>> in extrement enviroments, but also extreme zones of mental states
>> themselves
>> as part
>> of this discussion
>>
>> roger
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>
> David Haley BA(Hons) MA FRSA
>
> Senior Research Fellow
> Director, A&E [art&ecology] research unit
> MA Art As Environment Programme Leader
> SEA: Social & Environmental Arts Research Centre
> MIRIAD
> Manchester Metropolitan University
> Righton Building, Cavendish Street,
> Manchester M15 6 BG
>
> T: +44 (0)161 247 1093
> F: +44 (0)161 2476870
> M: 07725 405 365
> W: www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/profile/dhaley
> W: www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/artandecology
>
>
> "Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you
> should read the Manchester Metropolitan University's email
> disclaimer available on its website
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>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> _______________________________________________
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David Haley BA(Hons) MA FRSA
Senior Research Fellow
Director, A&E [art&ecology] research unit
MA Art As Environment Programme Leader
SEA: Social & Environmental Arts Research Centre
MIRIAD
Manchester Metropolitan University
Righton Building, Cavendish Street,
Manchester M15 6 BG
T: +44 (0)161 247 1093
F: +44 (0)161 2476870
M: 07725 405 365
W: www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/profile/dhaley
W: www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/artandecology
"Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you
should read the Manchester Metropolitan University's email
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