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THIS IS THE YASMIN-DISCUSSIONS DIGEST
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Yasmin_discussions Digest, Vol 34, Issue 4
(YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
2. Re: [Yasmin_announcements] yasminers sense of touch and the
ecological imaginary (YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
3. Re: Yasmin_discussions Digest, Vol 34, Issue 5
(YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2021 15:55:51 +0000
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: "yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr" <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Yasmin_discussions Digest, Vol 34,
Issue 4
Message-ID:
<mailman.17.1612608372.20336.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
As a published poet, I find poetry to be a curative for the soul during these stressful times.
---------------------------------------------
The Phoenix
by Hafez
My phoenix long ago secured
His nest in sky-vault's cope;
In the body's cage immured,
He is weary of life's hope.
Round and round this heap of ashes
Now flies the bird amain,
But in that odorous niche of heaven
Nestles the bird again.
Once flies he upward, he will perch
On Tuba's golden bough:
His home is on that fruited arch
Which cools the blest below.
If over this world of ours
His wings my phoenix spread,
How gracious falls on land and sea
The soul-refreshing shade!
Either world inhabits he,
Sees oft below him planets roll;
His body is all of air compact,
Of Allah's love his soul.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2021 12:13:39 -0600
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
Cc: roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>, yasmin_announcements@ntlab.gr
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] [Yasmin_announcements] yasminers
sense of touch and the ecological imaginary
Message-ID:
<mailman.18.1612608431.20336.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Dear Guillermo,
Thanks for sharing these thoughts! You raise an excellent point, and one which exposes my limited, US-based view of modern scientific practices. Under ideal circumstances, I would wholeheartedly agree that yes, science operates best when its practitioners employ radical care. Here in the US, however, it seems science so frequently operates under a form of capitalism that actively deters collaboration/knowledge sharing and eliminates concerns pertaining to social/political/environmental justice (among so many cases-in-point: the publicly-funded/privately profited so-called Moderna vaccine <https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/04/the-so-called-moderna-vaccine-is-a-publicly-funded-miracle/>).
The suggestion I am putting forth pertains to the kind of reductionist, hard-empiricist outlook that wholly disavows an observer?s relationship with the observed. I see this as having stemmed directly from the stepwise method developed by globally-influential early (?Enlightenment?) European experimental philosophers (ie: develop a hypothesis, design an experiment, run tests, formulate a conclusion, revise and/or repeat), which, while unquestionably effective, also allows for a kind of detached stance, one that can easily be seized on by those eager to exploit/colonize/profit. Without the express addition of ethical component, use of this method can allow ?nature?/?the environment? to be reduced to a discrete, measurable thing ?out there?. A livable future for all, however, depends on a shared, visceral understanding that we are all intra-dependent co-constituents.
I propose that those operating at the intersection of arts and sciences have an important role to play in bringing forth this kind of ?ecological imaginary? (aimed only, of course, at those cultures within which such a mindset is currently lacking). An open question to all YASMINERS: if you agree that such a mindset is desirable, what types of practices may be most effective in producing such an outcome? What kinds of thought and action have the potential to affect the visceral, dialectical realization that we are both separate and interwoven?that our own fates and seeming identities are coupled with, and are constantly being reshaped in relation to, the fates and identities of absolutely everyone and everything else?
My own answer <https://www.alycesantoro.com/writing/an-intricate-ensemble> to this question is only one small part of one small phoenix...
looking forward to learning of other works-in-progress!
Warm regards to all,
Alyce
alycesantoro.com <https://www.alycesantoro.com/>
> On Feb 5, 2021, at 2:58 AM, YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr> wrote:
>
> Hi Alyce, hi all,
>
> I m very grateful that we are having this very interesting exchange and
> discussion. It is very pleasant. So, first of all thanks to all your
> mailings, a great pleasure to read it.
>
> Alyce, I read your 4 points that summarize your suggestions. However I do
> not understand the third one. May be I misinterpreted, but, in my opinion
> science method needs radical care. May be radical care is here a specific
> concept, but I understand that care within the community is essential. The
> science community is quite large, because we can not elude that it should
> include "the others" not only as objects, so as subjects too (science is
> not an individual activity, and hence diversity, communities,... are
> essential for its development). So, in my point of view is the communal
> aspect of science the one that brings us to the method. So objectivity here
> is made by agreement. Yes, we follow empirical, methematical, logical,
> economical and societal rules, but agreement is the output (very difficult
> always of course) and care is needed to find this agreements. So, I would
> say that care between subjects is inside the method. Otherwise, agreement,
> as a political output, should be very difficult.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Guillermo.
>
>
> El vie., 5 feb. 2021 1:34, roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu> escribi?:
>
>> Speaking of touch? My grad class just went through an exploration of
>> the senses and examined Sommerer?s Nanoscape (touching what?s not
>> there through the mind?s eye).
>>
>>
>> yasminers
>> read on- alyce santoro , below, raises the issue of 'radical care'
>> which i immediately connected to the idea of tele-touch that cassini
>> nazir
>> brings up below and the whole idea of tele-epistemology ( see ken
>> goldberg https://goldberg.berkeley.edu/art/tele/intro.html ) where he
>> discusses the tele-garden which he created (
>> https://goldberg.berkeley.edu/garden/Ars/ ) and finally annick bureaud
>> heroric efforts on helping plants get passports (
>> https://quoartis.org/project/the-traveling-plant/ and also
>> https://rootsandseedsxxi.eu/leonardo-olats/ )
>>
>> yes thats what happens in the yasmin phoenix oasis- strange animals
>> cross connect their work
>>
>> roger
>>
>> cassini says
>> Perhaps there?s a market opportunity for a smart telehaptics company
>> to simulate virtual touch?Look forward to giving you a hug, too,
>> Roger!
>> alyce says
>> Since the idea of letting yasmin die was in no way intended, please
>> allow me to rephrase/simplify the essence of my suggestion:
>>
>> 1. Radical care may be an important component of in any/all forms of
>> phoenix (social, technological, economic, political, scientific, etc).
>> 2. A desire to radically care can stem from a visceral understanding
>> of interdependence.
>> 3. Radical care is not (nor can or should it be) a tenet of the
>> scientific method?which, by its very nature, requires an objective,
>> detached stance.
>> 4. Could science-minded creative practitioners assist in crafting a
>> new, more radically caring ?ecological imaginary??
>>
>> Abstract from my recent thesis (which I would be grateful for the
>> opportunity to discuss with anyone interested, off list if preferred):
>>
>> The contradictions inherent in European Enlightenment-based ?logics?
>> that externalize humans from ?nature? were a concern for the Romantic
>> Naturalists, Dadaists, and Surrealists. More recently, some in the
>> environmental humanities and socio-ecologically-concerned arts and
>> sciences have also posed challenges to anthropocentric, hierarchical,
>> positivist modes of thought. I suggest that by engaging the ludic,
>> imaginative, and collaborative while bearing the empirical in mind,
>> dualisms (such as objective and subjective, individual and collective)
>> dissipate, and existence as a dialectical state of intricate ensemble
>> can be revealed. In light of catastrophic disruption to Earth?s
>> life-sustaining processes by exploitative forms of human activity, I
>> argue an ?ecological imaginary? is urgently needed, and everyone is
>> capable of contributing to its prefiguring.
>>
>> Once again, in solidarity,
>> Alyce
>> alycesantoro.com
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Yasmin_announcements mailing list
>> Yasmin_announcements@ntlab.gr
>> http://ntlab.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_announcements_ntlab.gr
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
> Yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
> http://ntlab.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2021 12:35:37 +0100
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Yasmin_discussions Digest, Vol 34,
Issue 5
Message-ID:
<mailman.26.1612639548.20336.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Dear Guillermo, Alyce and everyone,
about Alyce's item 3 of the list:
> 3. Radical care is not (nor can or should it be) a tenet of the
> > scientific method?which, by its very nature, requires an objective,
> > detached stance.
>
as you may know I deeply care about this item: when, in 2012, I
open-sourced my brain cancer, I tried to dislocate the position of disease
in society: knowledge enters the flesh (physical, communicational or
imagined/cultural as it may be) and thus becomes explicitly exposed to
suffering, turning things inside out along many possible vectors, including
roles (in "La Cura", the "diseased" may easily become the ones that cure
the "healthy"). Thus bringing to fruition new possible epistemologies.
I have always felt that these opportunities to experiment the
transformation of terms is a real opportunity.
In Italy we have had the example of Franco Basaglia, and the idea that
mental health cure can only happen engaging the whole of society: these
theories and practices even became laws in our nation (although we must
continue to keep vigilant, as in these latest populist years have seen
violent ideals come back up again, even in healthcare).
Just as Donna Haraway invokes new forms of kinships.
For me, as you can imagine, this has also become a very personal issue. In
2020, the year of COVID, my cancer came back, too, and you can imagine how
complex it was to continue with this Basaglian approach during the madness
of the pandemics (at least in Italy it was).
This time, too, it has been a great opportunity for reinvention, in which
we had before our eyes the need for what we're calling the New Living (il
Nuovo Abitare).
When both our possibility to exist and survive, and our possibility to
enjoy our rights and freedoms start depending so much on data and
computation, we find ourselves pulled in two radically different directions
(share data to survive, protect data to defend). The answer may be in the
need for radically different forms of alliances with computational agents /
new kinships, like the Queer/Community AI I posted the other day, and in
the ways in which these new alliances can be lived to deal with the complex
issues that we face, like the pandemics, climate change, global access to
water, food, medicines, opportunities, etc
In this year, and with these reflections in mind, we have decided to
purchase a Hotel and to move our little research center there, making it a
center for this New Living and for its new ritualities, in which people
will be able to reside (physically and digitally, permanently or
temporarily), work, research, relate, explore these new alliances and,
generate food and energy, in the end, experience and document these new
kinships, for everyone to know, discuss and adopt, if they wish.
Something between a research center, a monastery, a wellness center, a
cultural center, a place in which you can have experiences and learn.
If you want, we have an initial position paper which we are distributing
informally, in preparation of a more solid output (although things are
moving faster than we can write them):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YUwoq5yLXcHlC5YBelflJQhUZ0cvsU49/view?usp=sharing
This is the kind of initiative that I think we could all have a part in, or
discuss. And this is also one way for radical caring to come into the
equation of methodological science, to make sure that scientific and
artistic/performative methods and approaches are expressed at their best,
like in a symphony.
For example, about what I was saying the other day, this topic of the New
Living and of these possible new alliances would be something for which a
wider interaction with yasminers would have an exceptional value. The new
EU grants are out and there are a number of other opportunities to explore:
I and the research center would be more than willing (in fact, we would be
happy) to form a consortium among yasminers to present some working
proposals.
let me know what you think
kind wishes to you all
Salvatore
--
*Art is Open Source *- http://www.artisopensource.net
*Human Ecosystems Relazioni* - https://www.he-r.it/
*Ubiquitous Commons *- http://www.ubiquitouscommons.org
------------------------------
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