Month: January 2010

the spectators

One thousand, three hundred, and thirty years ago at Karbala in present-day Iraq, Iman Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the prophet of Islam, led a small, traveling group of 72 persons. This group included children, women, and elderly persons, as well as a small number of horsemen and infantrymen dedicated to Husayn. They confronted an enemy force of about 40,000 trained soldiers. Husayn offered his men the opportunity to desert him in the cover of night rather than face certain death. None of the men left Husayn.

Husayn and his men challenged the enemy to single combat, and each defeated many. The enemy, however, prevented Husayn and his group from getting water. Husayn’s comrade Abbas ibn Ali crossed through the enemy force and gathered some water. But he was killed as he struggled to bring the water back to Husayn’s group. In the mass combat that followed, Husayn and his men penetrated to the elite core of the enemy force and dispersed it. But the vastly greater enemy numbers eventually overcame Husayn and his warriors. Husayn was beheaded and dismembered. Some of the children in his band were killed, and women, taken captive.

Abbas Kiarostami’s Ta’ziyeh / The Spectators presented this story, the Mourning of Muharram, in a present-day Iranian village, in the Sackler Gallery, this weekend. A color video of the ritual dramatization was flanked by two larger screens showing monochrome videos of spectators. The spectators sat on cushions in front of the screens in a narrow room specially prepared in the Sackler. Husayn’s group was dressed in green, and the enemy, in red.  Husayn circled on a white stallion and sang plangently.  The women, who sat on the upper level of the theater, looked formal and elegant in their black hajibs.  The women’s hajibs were subtly individualized, and the women manipulated them expressively.  The men, who sat on the lower level of the theater, wore a motley, unattractive assortment of clothes, including Adidas sports jackets, poorly fitting shirts, and ugly sweaters.  In the dramatization of the slaughter of a child, fake blood drenched the child’s white cloak of captivity.  Even spectators who watched the middle, colored screen with detachment or ethnographic curiosity felt the deep, authentic sorrow of the monochrome spectators on the left and on the right.

The event provided a profound meditation on being a spectator and on the cinema effect.  Abbas Kiarostami’s latest film, Shirin (2008), shows the twelfth-century Persian love story of Sassanian king Khosrow and Armenian princess Shirin  through the faces of 112 Iranian actresses as they apparently watch a film of it. Human beings, male and female, are unique, wonderful, and mysterious media.

Abbas Kiarostami’s Ta’ziyeh / The Spectators (Iran, 2003, 80 minute video) was presented in five showings at the Sackler Gallery on January 24-25, 2010.  Kiarostami’s Shirin will be shown in the Freer Gallery’s Myer Auditorium on Friday, Jan. 29, and Sunday, Jan. 31.

making sense is biological coding of sensory ecology

Dale Purves’ Lab provides profound and accessible teaching on the function of biological sensory systems. The point of biological sensory systems is not to perceive accurately the real world, but to respond successfully in the circumstances in which the organism has evolved and lives.  Phylogenetic and ontogenetic experiences determine perception-action cycles, which are empirical sensory responses. The common knowledge necessary for inter-subjective communication comes from the one real world and the shared phylogenetic and ontogenetic experiences of organism in that one common world.

But don’t merely ponder my representation of Dale Purves’ research. Play around with his online demonstrations and see for yourself.

Additional note:  Purves appends to the bottom of his resources list a note and some additional references under the title “Opinions about this approach to vision.”  The note states in part:

It seems only fair to warn those interested in the merits of the general approach to vision outlined here that opinion has been divided about this work. In fact, the majority opinion, to judge from numerous anonymous and a number of signed reviews, has been quite negative. …  Of course, people should make up their own minds, but it would be misleading to present the material, ideas, and demonstrations here without calling attention to their controversial nature.

There can be no more convincing testimony to the greatness of a scientist’s work.

real goods in well-established social networking

Harajuku at the Textile Museum

Every Sunday afternoon, Japanese youths gather on Jingu Bridge in Tokyo to display their fashions, to express themselves through their attire, and to socialize with others doing the same. Shops in the area have opened to sell this street chic fashion known as Harajuku. The shops both take fashion merchandising leads from the gathered youths and sell to them and to the tourists who come to see them.

Harajuku and other forms of costume play (cosplay) are closely linked to music bands, manga, anime, movies, and other entertainment content. Harajuku has attracted dedicated followers around the world, including in Washington, DC.  Harajuku differs from dressing up in the well-understood, common social enterprise that counter-balances individual, competitive display.

Selling objects for personal expression in social circumstances oriented toward those objects is a propitious business plan for social networking sites.

cloud services circa 1987

From a New York Telephone advertisement in 1987:

Intellipath II Digital Centrex Service is the latest step in the continuing evolution of Centrex.  It’s the first fully digital telecommunications system that requires no major switching equipment on your premises: it’s in New York Telephone’s central office.

Intellipath II offers 100 features: full-featured voice, full data transmission at up to 56 kbps with data call protection and a Centrex LAN option.  So you can have all the features of advanced on-premises systems without the headaches.

Like all Centrex telecommunications systems, Intellipath II frees you from the worries of maintenance and obsolescence.  New York Telephone monitors your system at its central office around the clock.  And we continually incorporate new technologies into our network as they are developed, and offer them to you — to keep your system at the leading edge.

Best of all, you won’t have to make a major capital investment.  With Intellipath II you pay for service as you use it.  You get a customized system at a competitive price.  [in Network World, July 20, 1987, p. 33]

That’s the promise of cloud services more than two decades ago.  Telephone companies have grown mainly on the basis of selling connectivity (lines and minutes), not services to connected customers.  Changing from selling connectivity to selling services to connected customers is a difficult business change.