2018.10.25
10:08
2016.10.25
Architectural Axiom/Statement Re-Writes
In the future, everyone will be large for fifteen minutes. --Andy Dandy
2012.10.25
3D CADbdatabase
12102501.db Working Title Museum 003 each floor wireframe
2008.10.25
front-line ideas + regional tradition = potential for a design culture of thinking/making?
Regarding Jarzombek's "Un-Messy Realism", what's important comes at the end:
"We have to realize that our discipline is undergoing an inner transformation of historical import and that sooner or later it will yield an educational system far different from the one we grew up with in the last twenty years. But whether this is for better or worse is difficult to ascertain since there is also a collusion of silence in academe about where the ghost ship is heading."
The "collusion of silence", like a law of silence (utilized by various emperors) is an effective form of control.
More likely it is an outer transformation that is bringing about the inner transformation.
A "collusion of silence" can also breed ignorance via ignoring.
"Official art culture is much more effective in its control of history than Republican strategists, for it knows that the best way to treat contradictory material is not to rail against it, but simply to pretend it didn't happen."
--Mike Kelley, 1992
Be watchful of the inner and the outer to see the full picture.
2004.10.25
Re: Pop Life: Los Super Elegantes
Saw Warhol (again) the other night in his cimematic debut where he first met Liz Taylor way before that Love Boat thing. I'll let Andy tell you the title, even though he was in it less than a minute. Do you think Vanessa Beecroft ever saw the opening scenes? Sure looked like one of her works.
Anyway, haven't finished my viewing yet, so my favorite scene is yet to come. No, not the terrorist explosion at the Altar of Peace. Actually, "What time is it?!?"
2002
Denis Diderot "Encyclopedia"
Diderot, Denis. "Encyclopedia." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Philip Stewart. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.004 (accessed 25 October 2026). Originally published as "Encyclopédie," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 5:635–648A (Paris, 1755).
141/192
He who shall undertake the domain of the arts, will not satisfactorily fulfill his mission, for others and for himself, unless he has made extensively study of natural history, and especially of mineralogy; unless he is an excellent mechanician; unless he is well versed in rational and experimental physics, and unless he has read several courses in chemistry.
142/192
As a naturalist, he will know at a glance the substances the artists are using, and which they ordinarily make such a secret.
143/192
As a chemist, he will be familiar with the properties of those substances: he will see the reasons for countless procedures; he will reveal the secrets; the artists will not deceive him; he will immediately detect the absurdity of their lies; he will grasp the meaning of an operation: sleight of hand will not escape his notice; he will easily distinguish between an indifferent movement and an essential precaution; everything he writes about the arts will be clear, sure, and revealing; and conjectures on the means of perfecting the arts we have, of rediscovering lost ones, and of inventing new ones, will come readily to his mind.
144/192
Physics will let him understand countless phenomena that leave the workers amazed their whole lives.
145/192
With mechanics and geometry, he will easily achieve the true and real calculation of forces; he will then need only to gain experience, to temper the rigor of mathematical suppositions, a quality which distinguishes, especially in the construction of delicate machines, the great artist from the common worker to whom one can never communicate a clear notion of that temperament, if he has not acquired it, and in whom it can never be corrected, if he has formed false notions of it.
146/192
Armed with these fields of knowledge, he will first introduce some order into his work, by relating the arts to natural substances, which is always possible; for the history of arts is nothing but applied natural history. See Map of the System of Human Knowledge.
147/192
He will then trace for each artist an outline to fill in; he will oblige them to deal with the material they employ, the places where it is found, the price they pay for it, etc., the instruments, the various processes, and all the operations.
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He will compare the artists' drafts with his outline; he will confer with them, have them add aloud what they have failed to include, and clarify what they have not adequately explained.
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However poor those drafts, if they have been done in good faith, they will always contain countless things that the most intelligent man will never notice or suspect and cannot ask. To be sure, he will desire others; but they will be things the artist hides from no one: for I have found that those who deal constantly with an object have an equal tendency to believe that what they make no secret of, everyone knows; and that no one knows what they are keeping secret: so that they were always tempted to regard the person questioning them as either a transcendent genius or an imbecile.
150/192
While artists continue to work, he will try to correct the articles we have communicated to him, and which he will find in our dictionary. It will not take him long to discover that despite all our efforts, glaring errors have slipped in (see the article Brick), and that there are entire articles which contain not an ounce of good sense ( see the article Cloth Bleaching): but he will learn by experience to thank us for the things that are well done, and forgive those that are bad. Once especially he has spent some time frequenting workshops, money in hand, and had to pay dearly for the silliest falsehoods, he will know what kind of people artists are, especially in Paris, where the fear of taxes makes them perpetually diffident, and where they consider any man who asks them questions with some degree of curiosity an emissary of the farmers general, or as a worker who wants to go into business for himself. I have thought that these pitfalls would be avoided by seeking in the provinces all the knowledge on the arts that could be collected there: there you are known, you talk to people who are not suspicious; money is rarer, and time less dear. Whence it seems evident to me that there things could be learned more easily and less expensively, and that the information would be more reliable.
2002.10.25
Re: The GREATMAN
Frank Zimmerman wrote in closing:
i kan hardly waite for 'ZTiffAN' to hurll hiz VORboze into THiz MIXX-KAN U & by the TIme 'THe RAiny-BUFfollow putzz IT toGETHER WE'll B zunning OURzelvez-a LONGway from PHillee'
Steve replies:
I could be cute and say I really should delay any 'hurl' coming from my direction, or more specifically from my Philadelphia position, but the truth is that I enjoy this bulletin board and it ongoing postings. I enjoy the stimulation as well as the open opportunity engendered by the bulletin board. Of course, this is because I even more enjoy the stimulation and open opportunity engendered by Duchamp and his works.
My first visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (in 1972 when I was a sophomore in high school) was spurred on by Life magazine's feature of the world's largest painting by Gene Davis. It was on that first visit that I at least remember seeing The Large Glass for the first time, but with no prior knowledge of it or Duchamp--perhaps in retrospect experiencing a kind of loss of virginity in the process, yet also oddly not knowing then who was ultimately "f-ing" with me. I wasn't crazy about what I saw, but the full title of the piece did indeed "tickle" me. Beyond that, I can now only guess that I probably didn't see into Étant Donnés that first visit, thus I probably saw the door, but didn't know to look inside.
Sometime it seems like a lot has happened (with me) in the 30 years since then, and sometimes it seems that maybe not enough happened since then. And then even delay becomes an issue, and I suppose that's appropriate (or is it just cute?).
One work at the PMA that I clearly remember from my first visit is the very early Picasso Self Portrait in its collection (currently on an exhibition tour). Picasso was still alive then, but he died the next year. I remember how Time magazine began it report of Picasso's death, something to the effect of moving from "Picasso IS the greatest artist of the 20th century to Picasso WAS the greatest artist of the 20th century."
I've just now been inspired to consolidate my Philadelphia Museum of Art focus via (working title) Reenacting Triumph on Fairmount, Even
1999.10.25
exporting merrie olde england
What you are basically questioning and evaluating are the (aesthetic) notions regarding reenactment as a purposefully designed phenomenon within the built environment. As my abstract indicates, I see this particular 'brand' of construction as something on the rise, but it is important to remember that reenactment is a 'theme' that exists throughout history. For example, Hadrian's Villa of the second century AD and Las Vegas of the 1990s. And aren't the Great Pyramids 'perfect' reenactments of mountains?
1947.10.25
1947. Saturday, New York City
At nine-thirty in the evening Marcel arrives at 56 Seventh Avenue to play chess with Frederick Kiesler.
Ephemerides
1942.10.25
1942. Sunday, New York City
"Yes, very good idea to have the string [14.10.1942] photographed," writes Dee to Miss Dreier, confirming at the same time that he will meet her at 451 Madison Avenue on 30 October. "I would rather lunch with you alone," he adds, "as we have so many things to speak about."
Duchamp, Breton and Kiesler, the three largely responsible for two important current manifestations, "First Papers of Surrealism" [14.10.1942] and Art of this Century [20.10.1942], dine together.
Ephemerides
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