Gramática parda [2010]

GP 2011

2011-01-03T18:02:00.000-08:00

Gramatica parda 2011 >>

2010-12-14T19:57:00.001-08:00

MH13

2010-12-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

Photographic source material, animation, concept and audio by Paul McLean, for the Matterhorn Project.

Paul Sereno Digs up Dinosaurs

2010-12-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

Paul Sereno Digs up Dinosaurs

Strange landscapes, scorching heat and (sometimes) mad crocodiles await scientists seeking clues to evolution's genius. Paleontologist Paul Sereno talks about his surprising encounters with prehistory -- and a new way to help students join the adventure.

Thanks Doyle for the heads up (Joe)

Matterhorn Sketch 11

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Matterhorn Sketch 2 [Low Res]

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Matterhorn Sketch 1 [Higher Res]

2010-10-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Matterhorn Project [Notes on Dimensional Time] moving image sketch #1 [Switzerland/Disneyland][lo-res]

Original concept, video and post-production [editing, audio, animation] by Paul McLean. This is the low resolution iteration.

Acknowledgements: Jean Baudrillard; European Graduate School

2010-10-21T01:44:00.000-07:00

GP Catalog Online Version

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2010-10-20T14:50:00.001-07:00

Catalog PDF

Catalog for Inaugural Exhibition

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Catalog Draft Image 5

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Catalog Draft Image 4

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Catalog Draft Image 3

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Catalog Draft Image 2

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Catalog Draft Image 1

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2010-10-05T22:50:00.001-07:00

John Merrell's Photos of the GP ANDLAB Reception

2010-10-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

See the photo set HERE.

New Underpaintings

2010-09-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

"I Love You, Monster"
[underpaintings]
[NYC, 2010]
©pjm

CYCLOPS/3D/BLOGLINK

2010-09-28T11:36:00.002-07:00

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2010-09-28T09:59:00.001-07:00

Scott, Brandii and CYCLOPS

2010-09-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

Clips

2010-09-28T02:31:00.000-07:00

Locale (2010)

Homage to the Great Emitter (2010)

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2010-09-27T20:52:00.001-07:00

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Gramática parda [Artist panel + opening photos]

2010-09-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

SHANE'S GP NET-ART PROJECT NOW ONLINE

2010-09-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.superluckycats.com/processing/gpapp/index.html

Opening reception photoset at AFH Flickr

2010-09-26T01:11:00.000-07:00

Showtime

2010-09-25T10:38:00.001-07:00

ANDLAB foyer

ANDLAB Installation Photos

2010-09-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

More photos at AFH Flickr.

Gramática parda [NoTD][POESIS]

2010-09-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

The lingo love wrote was a minotaur,
A champion sought, redacted, perishable
deformed as a sheep with two names, bodies
unstable as windows in a swelling void

no number could count or king,
ruler of naught, ought impacted, the fable -
a dirigible glides by currents invisible
elevated, untouchable, [01]

sugary text extruded to mean
people round [n + 1] round assembling, magnetized
by vocalic alphabet enabled, a counting
signal - a rain falls in this garden - 1 AND/OR 2
COMMAND: KILL/
in Brooklyn, collapsing, molten
with a view from a bridge, represented
ass a mural or zeroes plus ones
transmission intercepted < collective
without water, muttering, dirty
words, touring a system, rats
of the third rail, pylons, beams
light, cursed. TRUE AND/OR FALSE
"never forget"

STOP REQUESTED: TITLE
HEADING: If you [C] a corporation [space
> on the Road
> from the East (-
>> KILL HIM
[fax noise, END PROGRAM]

- PJM 10/22/20 10AM
BROOKLYN
[for gramatica parda]

Shane's poster for GP ANDLAB expo

2010-09-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Web graphic for GP ANDLAB expo

2010-09-21T09:30:00.001-07:00

Superlucky Purr #1

2010-09-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

The point of origination in this dimensional sound sequence [looped for presentation], titled "Superlucky Purr #1" is my kitten purring. The general scope of the exploration is the interplay of electronic intervention, vibration, selective filtering and language as an extension of body function. "Superlucky Purr #1" consists of digital and analog elements. The assembly of elements is primarily computer-enabled. The Sender-Receiver progression in the piece is complex, the end-user being the gallery guest.

"Superlucky Purr #1" isn't an audio recording (movement of air on the diaphragm of a microphone) as such. I was more interested in capturing the underlying rhythms of the purr, so I used a contact mic to record the vibrations. The kitten is situated now as a hollow-body electronic "musical" instrument. I also recorded other contextual or proximal vibrations and juxtaposed them with the purr. I set the secondary [sphere] focus on the ambient vibration as a constant, either naturally-occurring or artificial , but generally not sonically detectable or otherwise filtered by the "human ear."

Inspiration for "Superlucky Purr #1" was provided by the field recordings of Bernie Krauss, the vanishing sounds of North American frogs compiled by Charles M. Bogert, and artist-engineer Zach Poff, who taught me how to build and use contact mics.

Notations:

The rhythmic environmental subtext of my domestic space operates as the foundation for sonic architecture in "Superlucky Purr #1." For comparison, I considered how all of the sounds in an unmolested natural environment seem perfectly arranged to fit like puzzle pieces on an audio spectrum

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Jimmy the Painting Chimp...

Link to story

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platonic solids

2010-09-15T16:34:00.001-07:00

Michael Hansmeyer's Platonic Solids.

Also in 3D.

2010-09-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

Setting up phantogram piece...

2010-09-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

Coyotes in Hollywood (4am):

Bitmap Matterhorn

2010-09-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

[NoDT] Animation still + digital prints for Sept. 25 ANDLAB installation

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A dreaming on skin [event]

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Shots from installation in progress...

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Nice mention in today's ExperienceLA newsletter

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Chittipatis, Charnel Ground Lords

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The chimp sculpture in all its glory:

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One of Doyle's sculptures in progress:

Singing Sand

2010-09-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

From ‘Travels in Arabia Deserta’ by Charles M. Doughty

In the Nefud, toward El-Hyza, are certain booming sand hills ... such as the sand drift of J. Nagus, by the sea village of Tor, in Sinai: the upper sand sliding down under the foot of the passenger, there arises, of the infinite fretting grains, such a giddy loud swelling sound, as when your wetted finger is drawn about the lip of a glass of water, and like that swooning din after the chime of a great bell — or cup of metal — Nagus is the name of the sounding board in the Greek monastery, whereupon as the sacristan plays with his hammer, the timber yields a pleasant musical note, which calls forth the formal colieros to their prayers; another such singing sand drift, el-Howayriah, is in the cliffs (east of the Mezham) of Medain Salih.

Listen to some amazing recordings here.

2010-08-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Locale

2010-08-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

This is a cgi video phantogram (I think it’s a first). I don’t look at it as a film – experimental or otherwise. The 3D effect projected horizontally leaves the viewers with the impression that they are looking at animated models or dioramas. The thinglike (couldn’t think of a better word) aspect of the piece runs counter to the time-based ephemeral quality of film or video.

Locale was inspired by the writings of Robert Monroe – founder of the Monroe Institute and most famous for his book about out-of-body experiences published in the early 70s.

As an undergraduate, my thesis project dealt with the esoteric aspects of WB Yeats’ writings – primarily in his book, “A Vision.” Yeats developed a cosmology (based upon his wife’s automatic writing) that was really striking in its depth and at the same time relevant to him as a poet – providing him with a rich source of inspiration in his later writings. Since doing this project, I’ve been interested in the whole subject of cosmology and the implications different sorts of cosmologies have for human thought and behavior.

What struck me most in reading Monroe was the comprehensiveness of the cosmology he describes. The descriptions of his experiences are vivid and have uncanny, often frightening aspects. Beyond providing inspiration for this piece, his work again brought the whole issue of cosmology to the fore. It’s something that I plan exploring further in an artistic sense and it is an important issue in regards to the whole Gramática parda project.

Some Notes

2010-08-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

The work in this inaugural show represents possible expressions of the concept of “Gramática parda” (tawny or earthy grammar, the grammar of nature). And by extension (through Gary Snyder), the notion that the grammars of culture, civilization and nature are of the same order. All of the work is concise in regards to these ideas - but in a poetic sense (rich, nonlinear).

I’m finishing up the videos for the show and am posting a few notes on each of them… Opinions and thoughts are likely to expand/contract/change.

Homage to the Great Emitter

The source footage was shot in various locations: Santa Monica under water, Exposition Park, Griffith Park.

Made up of roughly 300 layers of video rendered as concentric rings scaled up from the center with each ring representing an individual frame. The structure results in what looks like a continuous emanation.

It is part of a series of pieces that I describe as “spatialized time” (I’m putting the last of these in this show). I took as its base a standard moving image and restructured into a sort of timeline.

The title is from Robert Monroe (who was the inspiration behind the 3D piece I did for the show called “Locale”).

The piece (and the others in the series) is about visual perception and visual representation of time and dimensional space. Fitting that it looks like an eye in this respect – the image of the eye is important in other work in the show as well.

There is a CGI bit in the middle that I use as a bridge to reverse the video into a loop. Beyond its function as a transition, I think of it as representing a mental or perceptual leap (perhaps that’s too obvious).

HUMS

2010-08-23T23:27:00.000-07:00

from Wired:

You can’t hear it, but the Earth is constantly humming. And some parts of the world sing louder than others.

After discovering the mysterious low-frequency buzz in 1998, scientists figured out that the Earth’s hum is caused not by earthquakes or atmospheric turbulence, but by ocean waves colliding with the seafloor. Now, researchers have pinpointed the source of the Earth’s “background noise,” and it looks like it’s coming primarily from the Pacific coast of North America.

When two waves of opposite direction but similar frequency collide, they create a special kind of pressure wave that carries energy to the ocean bottom. As these waves pound against the sea floor, they generate a constant vibration with a frequency of about 10 millihertz, much too low for humans to hear but easily detectable with seismometers. By comparing the intensity of the hum with the height of waves around the world, scientists can track where the buzz is coming from.

Previous studies suggested that waves from both shallow continental shelves and the deep ocean contribute to the Earth’s hum, but new data indicates otherwise. Based on measurements from a seismic observatory called the USArray EarthScope, most of the hum appears to originate from the Pacific coast of North America, with a smaller contribution from the west coast of Europe. Waves from the deep ocean don’t seem to make much hum at all.

Listen to a version sped up enough for human ears. Courtesy of UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory.

There are other unexplained HUMS around the globe that are audible to the human ear as well. The Taos (New Mexico) Hum is well known amongst many residents, but the Auckland Hum from the North shore of NZ is well documented and more importantly well recorded. Listen to this uncompressed wav file. And another. - sounds from T.J. Moir

2010-08-23T22:41:00.001-07:00

Phantogram

2010-08-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

Phantograms, also known as Phantaglyphs, Op-Ups, free-standing anaglyphs, levitated images, and book anaglyphs, are a form of optical illusion. Phantograms use perspectival anamorphosis to produce a 2D image that is distorted in a particular way so as to appear, to a viewer at a particular vantage point, three dimensional, standing above or recessed into a flat surface. The illusion of depth and perspective is heightened by stereoscopy techniques; a combination of two images, most typically but not necessarily an anaglyph (color filtered stereo image). With common (red-cyan) 3D glasses, the viewer's vision is segregated so that each eye sees a different image.

Phantograms can be created using drawn images, photographs, or computer-generated images. Phantograms are usually placed horizontally and are intended to be viewed standing back from the image, though they can also be placed vertically and viewed at an angle from above or below.

The Uncanny

2010-08-23T20:47:00.001-07:00

The Uncanny (Ger. Das Unheimliche -- literally, "un-home-ly") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange.^[1] (See Uncanny valley)

Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.

2010-08-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

Photo by John Guider

Moving is an INCREDIBLE THING. -ZEELIO

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PDF Invite

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Opening Reception Invitation

2010-08-19T23:55:00.001-07:00

La Llareta

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In Chile - parts of this plant are more than 3,000 years old.

Bloop

2010-08-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

from CNN.com

Scientists have revealed a mysterious recording that they say could be the sound of a giant beast lurking in the depths of the ocean.

Researchers have nicknamed the strange unidentified sound picked up by undersea microphones "Bloop."

While it bears the varying frequency hallmark of marine animals, it is far more powerful than the calls made by any creature known on Earth, Britain's New Scientist reported on Thursday.

It is too big for a whale and one theory is that it is a deep sea monster, possibly a many-tentacled giant squid.

In 1997, Bloop was detected by U.S. Navy "spy" sensors 3,000 miles apart that had been put there to detect the movement of Soviet submarines, the magazine reports.

Listen here.

2010-08-17T10:57:00.001-07:00

mycelium.model

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source by Jared Tarbell

Rishma Dunlop

2010-08-15T18:10:00.000-07:00

In Search of Tawny Grammar:
Poetics, Landscape, and Embodied Ways of Knowing

Abstract:

In this article, the researcher explores Thoreau’s notion of gramatica parda, a dark and dusky knowledge inspired by the natural world as the concept relates to embodied knowing, alternative, artistic forms of research representation, and education. The approaches are interdisciplinary, drawing from perspectives of feminist geography, literary and aesthetic theories, theories of embodiment, perception, and ecology. Through these multiple lenses, poetry, fiction, and narrative forms are introduced as possibilities for epistemologies and ontologies. In this work, the researcher draws on her own work as poet/fiction-writer/researcher and teacher. The narrative explorations aresites that envision ecology,landscape,and poetic “story- telling” as sites of pedagogical possibilities.

PDF of full paper

Merleau-Ponty

2010-08-15T02:15:00.000-07:00

Language is the very voice of the trees, the waves, the forest.

The Visible and the Invisible, Followed by Working Notes - p. 155

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Excerpt from Moby Dick by Herman Melville

2010-08-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.

On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation.

Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's fancy.

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark's tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has cost steady years of steady application.

As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert Durer.

Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with much accuracy.

At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit.

In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in a surf of green surges.

Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; like the Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish.

With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight!

Draft 2

2010-08-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

Trial of Jim Dandy, Chapter 5

2010-08-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

I’m struggling with language right now, with pictures, and with the pictures that the words can create. There are buddhas like Gary Snyder who know the beauty of the American Language [Gramatica Parda - Ed.], how it can be a vehicle for the beauty of the Land. The American Language in rare cases can be a Touch, like Ginsberg’s sunflower, witnessed by Kerouac, or van Gogh’s Roses. I wish I could be a Buddha. I am Wish….

- Jim Dandy, as told to John Law [THE TRIAL OF JIM DANDY, Chapter 5 (NOTES ON DIMENSIONAL TIME)][PJM]

2010-08-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

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