http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/aug/17/its-only-humanist/ To me it tastes like a desire to locate man’s place in a world that he perceives primarily with the aid of machines. The art of the Greeks has been used in the past as a touchstone for artists who measure their own vision against an anthropocentric one. “Greek art had a purely human conception of beauty,” Apollinaire wrote in an essay about a 1912 exhibition of Cubist painting. “It took man as the measure of perfection. The art of the new painters takes the infinite universe as its ideal, and it is to the fourth dimension alone that we… ]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:16:49 -0700 http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/aug/17/its-only-humanist/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/oct/05/notes-letters-music-modernism-self The high arts of literature and music stand in a curious relationship to one another, at once securely comfortable and deeply uneasy – rather like a long-term marriage. At the securely comfortable end of the emotional spectrum we have those zeniths of song, the German lieder tradition, and high opera. In the best examples of both forms words and music appear utterly and indissolubly comingled. However, at the other end of this spectrum we have those kinds of music that attempt to be literary – so-called programme music – and those forms of literature that attempt, either through descriptive representation… ]]> Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:54:22 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/oct/05/notes-letters-music-modernism-self http://parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia11/parrhesia11_ranciere.pdf I will present some remarks here on the use of the notion of medium in art theory and the light cast on this notion by the case of photography. The notion of medium is in fact much more complex than it appears at first. Theorizations of medium as the crucial element of artistic modernity bring two apparently opposite senses of the word into play. First, we understand the word ‘medium’ as ‘that which holds between’: between an idea and its realization, between a thing and its reproduction. The medium thus appears as an intermediary, as the means to an end or the agent of an… ]]> Sat, 12 Mar 2011 02:55:38 -0700 http://parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia11/parrhesia11_ranciere.pdf http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66802/richard-k-betts/conflict-or-cooperation?page=show Among the theorists who jumped into the market for models of the future, three stood out: Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, and John Mearsheimer. Each made a splash with a controversial article, then refined the argument in a book -- Fukuyama in The End of History and the Last Man, Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, and Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Each presented a bold and sweeping vision that struck a chord with certain readers, and each was dismissed by others whose beliefs were offended or who jumped to conclusions about… ]]> Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:54:00 -0700 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66802/richard-k-betts/conflict-or-cooperation?page=show http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-soul-of-the-scientist-of-man ow does the character of the scientist differ from that of the humanist? The past century has seen an acceleration in the “scientization” of the humanities. The roots of this trend, as other contributors to this symposium have noted, are entwined with those of modernity itself. And while the tale of this turn has been told broadly before — the story of entire disciplines adopting the name, the method, and the underlying assumptions of modern science — little has been said of the change in the educators themselves. It is not just the method of inquiry and the substance of… ]]> Sun, 04 Apr 2010 06:54:00 -0700 http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-soul-of-the-scientist-of-man http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/10/whos-afraid-of-the-avant-garde/ There's a reason why we find it easier to "get" modern art than avant-garde music, and it's not just about our natural conservatism and love of Mozart... Arts & books Who’s afraid of the avant-garde? Philip Ball 21st October 2009 — Issue 164 Free entry There's a reason why we find it easier to "get" modern art than avant-garde music, and it's not just about our natural conservatism and love of Mozart Looking at Rothko: no harder to “see” than wallpaper Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don’t Get Stockhausen By David Stubbs (Zero Books, £9.99) The writer… ]]> Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:53:00 -0700 http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/10/whos-afraid-of-the-avant-garde/ http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/4692/Traversing-the-Altermodern-Tate-Britains-4th-Triennial In one of the most uncanny revelations in science fiction, the protagonist of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine awakes from his anthropic slumber: the museum is filled with artefacts not from his past, but from his future. From here the very notion of history, of memorandum, retrospection and the artefact is called into question. The Time Traveller has become lost not in space, but in time, and nothing will ever be straightforward again.

Like the Time Traveller I too am a wanderer of ancient museums in unfathomable lands. From… ]]> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:58:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/4692/Traversing-the-Altermodern-Tate-Britains-4th-Triennial