posts tagged ‘time’
感應 (resonance)
13 June 2011 • out of context
tags: books, earth, meaning, music, quotes, sound, space, time
“ganying 感應 resonance, stimulus and response
“Resonance” is a central operative principle of the cosmos as conceived by the Huainanzi. The phrase itself means “stimulus” (gan 感) and “response” (ying 應), which is how we have translated it when the Huainanzi refers specifically to the discrete component processes that the term denotes. Fundamentally, “resonance” is a process of dynamic interaction that transcends the limits of time, space, and ordinary linear causality. Through the mechanism of resonance, an event in one location (the “stimulus’”) produces simultaneous effects in another location (the “response”), even though the two phenomena have no direct spatial or mechanical contact. They may indeed be separated by vast gulfs of space. For example, connections between celestial events (eclipses, planetary motions) and events in the human community were understood as examples of “resonance”.
For the authors of the Huainanzi, such connections were not coincidence or mere correspondence but dynamic influences exchanged through the energetic medium of qi. All phenomena are both composed of and impelled by qi, and since all currently differentiated qi emerged from an originally undifferentiated Grand One, all qi remains mutually resonantly linked. The pathways of resonance are not random, however. Objects are most sensitive to resonant influences emanating from other objects that share the same constituent form of qi.
The best example of this is an empirically observable phenomenon often cited by ancient authors to illustrate the concept of resonance itself: the harmonic resonance observable among musical instruments. If a string tuned to the pentatonic note gong on one qin is plucked, for example, the corresponding string on a separate qin will be perceived to vibrate. This was thought to occur because of the presence of Earth qi which is responsible for the note gong in both instruments. When the Earth qi in the first instrument is activated (the stimulus), the corresponding Earth qi note in the other resonates (the response).
Such interactions were thought to be operative in the universe at all times. Someone who understood the patterns of these interactions could manipulate them to produce marvelous and beneficial effects across space-time.”
The Huainanzi
Columbia University Press
Watchings
24 October 2010 • watchings
tags: animals, brain, cinema, comedy, conscience, death, documentaries, drugs, fantasy, fiction, hallucinations, killers, love, mathematics, murder, music, nature, particles, perception, politics, science, sound, space, television, time, tv series
• Fringe, Seasons 1-2 (2008-2010)
J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
• Человек с киноаппаратом / Man with a Movie Camera (1929) [watch]
Dziga Vertov
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly
• The Ghost Writer (2010)
Roman Polanski
• El Abecedario de Gilles Deleuze. A de Animal (1988) [watch]
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
Billy Wilder
• Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Sidney Lumet
Abolir el espacio y el tiempo
18 October 2010 • out of context
tags: animals, quotes, space, texts, time
“Oscuramente me pareció comprender su voluntad secreta, abolir el espacio y el tiempo con una inmovilidad indiferente”.
Axolotl by Julio Cortázar
The torturous experience of waiting
31 August 2010 • out of context
tags: books, perception, quotes, time, uncertainty
“When we see the frozen hands of a clock with a dead battery, and we sit there and watch it, we tend to have a sinking feeling. Something feels wrong. We like to see time flow, as it is only natural that it seek its natural progression forward. On the other hand, when a clock is completely hidden we tend not to question its flow and instead experience an unsettling sense of uncertainty as to what time it might be. Seeing a clock’s secondhand tick-tick forward is a reassuring sign that all is well. (…) A frozen computer is like a frozen clock, and thus ways to psychologically deal with this torturous experience of waiting emerged in the form of progress bars.”
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
How much is lost in waiting?
31 August 2010 • out of context
tags: books, consumism, minimal, perception, quotes, time
“The average person spends at least an hour a day waiting in line. Add to this the uncountable seconds, minutes, weeks spent waiting for something that might have no line at all.
Some of that waiting is subtle. We wait for water to come out of the faucet when we turn the knob. We wait for water on the stove to boil, and start to feel impatient. We wait for the seasons to change. Some of the waiting we do is less subtle, and can often be tense or annoying: waiting for a Web page to load, waiting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or waiting for the results of a dreaded medical test.
No one likes to suffer the frustration of waiting. Thus all of us, consumers and companies alike, often try to find ways to beat the ticking hand of time. We go out of our way to find the quickest option or any other means to reduce our frustration.”
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
Science is the ultimate pornography
30 May 2009 • out of context
tags: analysis, books, context, events, isolation, objects, pornography, quotes, science, space, time
The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard
