RNDRD

Rendering the 20th century

April 8th, 2011

 

RNDRD is a frequently updated feed of high-quality images from published architectural projects of the 20th century. RNDRD does not publish photographs of completed work, only renderings: hand-drawing, collage, models and graphics of all sorts. RNDRD uses out-of-print academic and trade journals as its source of images, culling the most striking renderings from thousands of pages of print that will not be available online. RNDRD aims to provide a clearer image of the evolution of architectural rendering, from turn-of-the-century beaux-arts drawings and 60s collage to the emergence of computer graphics and renderings in the 1980s. As the internet increasingly becomes the main source for architects to engage with precedence in architectural rendering, RNDRD hope to provide a broader array of images and methods of image-making, simply by trudging through the dusty bookshelves of now un-read and un-referenced work.

The hero's journey

The 17 Stages of the Monomyth

April 3rd, 2011

 

Departure

The Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Supernatural Aid

The Crossing of the First Threshold

Belly of The Whale

 

Initiation

The Road of Trials

The Meeting With the Goddess

Woman as Temptress

Atonement with the Father

Apotheosis

The Ultimate Boon

 

Return

Refusal of the Return

The Magic Flight

Rescue from Without

The Crossing of the Return Threshold

Master of Two Worlds

Freedom to Live

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Altruism has 3 degrees of separation

April 1st, 2011

 

Via Epiphenom: "One of the mysteries of human behaviour is why we sometimes act with completely selfless altruism. When asked to play totally anonymous games in which we can cheat without anyone else ever finding out, very often we don't.

 

Instead, we play the game fairly, which results in a cost to ourselves (compared with what we could've had) and a benefit to the stranger. That's a mystery because evolution says that organisms which don't act to maximise benefit to themselves - whatever the cost to others - should die out.

 

Several explanations have been put forward, but one of the most intriguing stems from the fact that we live in social networks. In a network like this, we depend critically on the kindness of others.

 

A new study has looked at how altruistic behaviour can be transmitted between players in the kinds of anonymous games that social psychologists are so fond of. The data were from some earlier experiments in which 240 people played the games over six rounds, each time with different partners (all anonymous).

 

What they found was that the amount individuals contributed in one round was affected by how generous their partners were in previous rounds. If they played with generous people in round 1, then they would be more generous to the new partners they had in round 2.

 

In fact, they showed that this effect was propagated through new partners. As you can see in the figure, if Eleni was generous to Lucas, then Lucas would be generous to Erika, and Erika more generous to Jay.

 

Unselfish acts propagated out to 3 degrees of separation. When you remember that only 6 degrees of separation stand between you and every other person on the planet, you can understand how powerful and important this effect is."

 

Psychology of Music

The effect of looks and musical preference on trait inference

March 16th, 2011

 

Via SAGE (PDF): "When forming first impressions about individuals, we often categorize them as belonging to a specific social group, based on very little information. Certain aspects in the way a person looks, or information about a certain trait they possess, may lead us to identify them as belonging to a high- or low-status social group. (…)

 

Listening to music is an activity that plays an important role in people's lives, especially in adolescence and young adulthood. Individuals consider the music they like as an important part of themselves, and believe their taste in music reveals aspects of their own personality, more than preferences for books, clothing, food, movies and television shows. The idea that personal musical taste is related to other aspects of personality has in fact received further confirmation in various studies relating musical preferences and particular personality traits. Thus, for example, liking for rock, heavy metal and punk were found to be positively related to sensation-seeking; extraversion and psychoticism were found to be related to liking for music with exaggerated bass such as rap and dance music, and to stimulating music such as rock-and-roll and pop; rebelliousness was found to be related to liking for defiant music. (…)

 

Studies suggest that knowing a person's musical taste has a powerful effect on how they are perceived and evaluated."

Civilization

Science for a changing world
March 12th, 2011

From Wikipedia: "Civilization (or civilisation) is a sometimes controversial term which has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to human cultures which are complex in terms of technology, science, politics and division of labour. Such civilizations are generally urbanized. In classical contexts civilized peoples were called this in contrast to barbarian peoples, while in modern contexts civilized peoples have been contrasted to primitive peoples."

From USGS: "The USGS is a science organization that provides impartial information on the health of our ecosystems and environment, the natural hazards that threaten us, the natural resources we rely on, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and the core science systems that help us provide timely, relevant, and useable information."

Hummingbird induced to a deep sleep

Fernando Ortega, 2006

March 11th, 2011

 

Via Los Angeles Times: "As John Cage famously remarked, 'If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight…. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.'"

Side note: Don't miss the comments for this article – beyond believe.

We no longer live in a society of spectacle but in one of participation.

Music—Immateriality—Value by Diedrich Diederichsen

February 12th, 2011

 

Via e-flux: "What is to be done? Pop music cannot be rescued; something new must be invented to take its place, and music may or may not have a role to play in whatever that turns out to be. One cannot set out to invent such a thing, just as pop music itself simply emerged, as it were, in places far from the forward march of progress, in a development that was historically necessary, as we know today, but was unpredictable for its contemporaries. It did not arise where enlightened people tried something new, but where others acted quickly and from a sense of spiritual urgency. We must remain open to the possibility of something similar happening again. But pop music was only able to come into being by repeatedly coming into contact with radical artistic forces, as when John Cale and La Monte Young developed The Dream Syndicate from the spirit of the Everly Brothers, or Tony Conrad suspected that the solipsistic drone might be used as an anticapitalist weapon. So while one can no longer reconstruct pop music in a purposeful and systematic way, one can still move forward with the neo-neo-avant-garde work of utopian practices or their derivatives—perhaps in a more complex and radical manner, while touching on other arts that have similar problems—at the admittedly high price of creating niches, provided that one also remain in contact with the world of cheap and worn-out forms that have preserved something of people’s actual lives, however unrecognizable they may have become. These do not necessarily have to be musical forms. What is needed, however—not for economic reasons, but for political and cultural ones—are reference points for everyone. The niche has become neither a utopia nor a permanent state of affairs, but rather the end."

 

Thanks to Marcus Schmickler!

Ignosticism

I don't know what you mean

February 5th, 2011

 

Via Wikipedia: "Ignosticism, or igtheism, is the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts. (…)

An ignostic maintains that they cannot even say whether he/she is a theist or an atheist until a sufficient definition of theism is put forth. (…)

 

A simplified maxim on the subject states: An atheist would say, 'I don't believe God exists'; an agnostic would say, 'I don't know whether or not God exists'; and an ignostic would say, 'I don't know what you mean when you say, "God exists" '."

 

Above: Incredible porcelain doll by Marina Bychkova.

The Neuroscience Of Music

by Jonah Lehrer

January 27th, 2011

 

Via Wired: "A new paper in Nature Neuroscience by a team of Montreal researchers marks an important step in revealing the precise underpinnings of the potent pleasurable stimulus that is music. (…)

Let's Make Money

Documentary

January 15th, 2011

 

Via Wikipedia: "Let's Make Money is an anti-capitalist Austrian documentary by Erwin Wagenhofer released in 2008. It is about aspects of the development of the world wide financial system, focussing on how elitists economically exploit the rest of society, especially in the developing world, but also in western nations. (...)

 

Writing in the The Financial Times, Christopher Caldwell praises the film's beauty, going on to state that Wagenhofer has a perfect sense for pictorial composition and even for sound. Though he also writes that film is an imperfect medium for providing an accurate view of complex economic developments. Caldwell opines that rather than providing a coherent argument, the film 'resembles an art film such as Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Godfrey Reggio's haunting, wordless indictment of the frenzy of modern life'."

 

Thanks to Lena Willikens!