Ricksmuseum

Ik citeer dus ik ben… een postmoderne column

Category: Language & Text, Filosofie, Science, Art, Stories, General — Rick Companje — 11 December 2006 @ 00:59

Deze eclecticistische column is een bewuste aaneenrijging van citaten… en laat dat nou eens heel postmodern zijn… Origineel wil ik het niet noemen, want ‘citationisme is geen nieuw verschijnsel.’ [1] ‘We kunnen niet meer origineel zijn, dus we hergebruiken liever oude ideeën. Het maakt niet veel uit welke, het is maar net wat ons het beste uitkomt.’ [2] ‘Je moet proberen iets te maken dat van iedereen is. Dan maak je grote dingen, want alle grote dingen zijn van iedereen.’ [3]

‘Tijdens de Verlichting vestigde zich het primaat van de rede. Dat heeft geleid tot de veronderstelling dat er slechts één absolute waarheid kan zijn.’ [4] Een aantal decennia later is ‘volgens het postmodernisme de werkelijkheid te complex gebleken en kan deze daardoor niet meer gevonden worden in allesverklarende theorieën.’ [5] Ook in de kunst is ‘alles al een keer gedaan, dus heeft het niet zoveel zin om als kunstenaar nog te proberen nieuwe beelden te verzinnen.’ [6] Ofwel er is sprake van het einde van de grote verhalen,’ [7] ‘de verhalen met absolute en universele waarheidspretentie. Daaronder verstaan we bijvoorbeeld dé godsdienst, dé filosofie, dé kunst, hét politiek-economisch systeem maar tegenwoordig in het Westen vooral dé rationele wetenschap.’ [8]

‘Je opvatting in het nú bestaat bij de gratie, dat zij morgen verworpen wordt.’ [9] ‘Een echte waarheid wil niet worden aanbeden, maar gekritiseerd.’ [10] ‘Waarschijnlijk ervaart elke theorie op een zekere dag zijn “Nee” - de meeste theorieën verdwijnen al snel na hun conceptie.’ [11]

‘Niet alleen kunst, cultuur, wetenschap en filosofie zijn in het postmoderne stadium geraakt, ook de mens mét al deze dingen is postmodern geworden! (…) ‘Je kunt nu ook wetenschapper én kunstenaar zijn, kunt alle vormen van kennen en leven ook gaan mixen, kunt vrijelijk putten uit cultuur, religie, filosofie, wetenschap en kunst en daarin geheel je eigen weg gaan. (…) Filosofische kunst, wetenschappelijke cultuur, kunstzinnige wetenschap, culturele filosofie’ [12]

‘Het is een schilderij dat in zijn bontste fase is terechtgekomen. Dat geeft ruimte, maar het kan ons tegelijkertijd verlammen. Er is zoveel te kiezen, dat sommige mensen nergens meer toe komen omdat ze de keuzes uit de weg gaan. (…) Wanneer je gekozen hebt, op al die verschillende gebieden, bedenk dan goed dat je nog steeds deel uitmaakt van dat grote schilderij met die ontelbare hoeveelheid aan verschillende kleuren en vormen. (…) Door je keuze krijg jezelf kleur en vorm. (…) Zorg dat je daarbij de andere invullingen niet uit het oog verliest.’ [13]

Dit is volgens mij wat Richard Rorty bedoelt met ‘overtuigd zijn van de betrekkelijkheid van je eigen mening, en er desalniettemin voor staan.’ [14]

Het huidige klimaat is erg geschikt voor mij. Ik probeer zoveel mogelijk kansen te benutten, laat mijn creativiteit de vrije loop in een mix van kunst en wetenschap. Ik heb het geluk te leven in gunstig politiek-economisch systeem waar ik van kleur kan verschieten zoveel ik wil. Ik leer te reflecteren met behulp van de filosofie en begin daardoor langzaam een van de kleurige verfspetters te worden in een cultuur die er wat mij betreft zo uitziet als een abstract expressionistisch schilderij van Jackson Pollock.

Pollock-Number-31_2.jpg

[1] Nederlandse Nieuwe Wilden (http://members.home.nl/kunstna1945/nederlandse nieuwe wilden.htm)
[2] Ralph Kok - Postmodernisme: een doodlopende middenweg, 2006
[3] Rob Scholte
[4] Matty Verhoef - Het postmodernisme versus het Chinees modernisme, 2006
[5] Anne Schellekens - “Postmodernisme, wat heb je eraan?”
[6] Rob Scholte
[7] Anne Schellekens - “Postmodernisme, wat heb je eraan?”
[8] André Klukhuhn - Geschiedenis van het Denken (p.268) ref. naar Jean-François Lyotard)
[9] Paulien Luiten - Hemel en Heelal of Hybride?, 2006
[10] Friedrich Nietzsche
[11] Albert Einstein
[12] Ellen Rutten - Onze Postmoderne Wereld, 2006
[13] Marloes Bazelier - Kiezen en delen, 2006
[14] Richard Rorty

GMail API

I started experimenting with the GMail API and it rocks!
We’re going to use this API in our Petri-Jungle E-volution project to create life-forms from e-mail. More info follows.

[code lang=”PHP”]$gmailer = new GMailer();
if ($gmailer->created) {
$gmailer->setLoginInfo($gmail_acc, $gmail_pwd, $my_timezone);
if ($gmailer->connect()) {
// $gmailer->fetchBox(GM_STANDARD, “inbox”, 0);
// $gmailer->fetchBox(GM_LABEL, “Globe4D”, 0);
// $gmailer->fetchBox(GM_CONTACT, “all”, 0);
$gmailer->fetchBox(GM_QUERY, “To:Nico”, 0);
$snapshot = $gmailer->getSnapshot(GM_STANDARD);
//echo print_r_xml($snapshot);
print_r($snapshot);
[/code]

The output is a snapshot object like this:
[code lang=”PHP”]
GMailSnapshot Object
(
[created] => 1
[gmail_ver] => cd4adb3001353850
[country] =>
[google_name] => Rick Companje
[have_invit] => 96
[quota_mb] => 1760

[quota_tot] => 2743
[quota_per] => 64
[quota_col] => #006633
[gmail_tip] => Shortcuts: …………

[personality] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => Rick Companje
[email] => ……………….

[default] => 1
[reply-to] =>
[verified] => 1
)

)
[label_list] => Array
(
[0] => 3voor12
[1] => ARP Mailing
[2] => Cijfers.net
[3] => Domeinen
[4] => Events

[5] => Fabrique
[6] => Flash
[7] => FlexCoders
[8] => Globe4D
[9] => Hardware
[10] => HHS
[11] => Kamer zoeken

[12] => Lasergame
[13] => Links
[14] => Lowlands 2004
[15] => Lowlands 2005
[16] => Nieuwsbrieven
[17] => Nieuw Zeeland
……..
[view] => 11
[box_name] => Search results for: To:Nico
[box_total] => 190
[box_pos] => 0
[box_display] => 20
[box_query] => To:Nico

[queried_results] => 1
[box] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[id] => 10c67372660b17a8
[is_read] => 0
[is_starred] => 0

[date] => 10:28 am
[sender] => Draft
[flag] =>  
[subj] => goed nieuws gmail api
[snippet] =>

[msgid] => 10c67372660b17a8
[labels] => Array
(
[0] => ^r
)

[attachment] => Array

(
)

[long_date] => Thu Jul 13 2006
[long_time] => 10:28 AM
[is_chat] => 0
[chat_length] =>

)
[/code]

Inkblots of your Inbox

Experimenting with visualisation of word patterns in e-mail, blogs, fora, chats and newsgroups.

ScreenHunter_023.jpg

See also: DNA van je inbox

Interactive Morphogenesis

Category: Making Art of Databases, Language & Text, Gardening, Information Esthetics, Processing, Science, Tech, Projects, Art, General — Rick Companje — 29 June 2006 @ 13:16

Some information on our Making Art of Databases project ‘Interactive Morphogenesis‘ is available now.

morphogenesis400-2.jpg

Interactive Morphogenesis is a project in which I and two other students demonstrated a concept for interacting with three-dimensional Lindenmayer Systems (L-systems) models using live sound.
Using the dynamics of L-systems, methods for visualizing and synthesizing sound are examined through recursive generation of virtual-artificial organisms.
The project shows how L-systems can be used to visualize elements in sound and vice-versa, to demonstrate how sound can be used to grow L-system based, interactive artificial morphogenesis.

morphogenesis400.jpg

DNA van je Inbox…

Watch and interact with the Java Applet (drag with your mouse):

Lees verder…

Language Systems

Category: Processing, Language & Text, Programming, Science, School, Art, General — Rick Companje — 8 May 2006 @ 08:44

L-Systems used to create visualizations from language

By Ralph Kok, Hanco Hogenbirk and Rick Companje.
Supervised by Crit Cremers, Leiden University

Abstract
In this paper we present a concept for using language characteristics in generating artistic visualizations. It describes how the recursive nature of L-Systems can be used to create visual representations of sentences created by the language generating and parsing computer program Delilah.

Keywords: L-Systems, Delilah, Language, Visualizations, Language and Text, Media Technology

Download PDF

L-Systems and the Delilah System

L-Systems (Lindenmayer-systems) have been developed by the biologist A. Lindenmayer [to describe the growth and development of algae and other botanic organisms. An L-System is basically a string-rewriting system, consisting of a starting value and a set of rules defining how it changes. The beauty of L-Systems is that they can be (and are) used to describe complex plantlike and fractal-like structures in a simple way. More on L-Systems can be found at Wikipedia [1].

“Delilah parses and generates complex Dutch sentences over a dedicated lexicon by applying a combinatory categorical grammar under graph unification.” [2]. The Delilah application is able to analyze given sentences to extract semantic and grammatical information, as well as to generate grammatically correct sentences when given a concept or subject.

A linguistic application of L-systems
Our concept is as follows: Delilah is given a concept and outputs a sentence along with all the information that describes this sentence, such as its grammatical structure. The grammatical information is used to generate visual output from, which will be interpreted by human viewers. Their reaction in turn will serve as input for Delilah, closing the loop and restarting the process.

The way we apply the grammatical information to L-Systems is to generate rules according to the structure of the sentence. Practically, this means our system reads word categories and translates them to symbols that compose the string-rewriting rule that will be used in generating the L-System structure. In this manner, every grammatically different sentence will lead to a different rule and will yield a new shape.

The shape is output visually and presented to the viewer as a kind of abstract ‘ink blob’, inviting the viewer to interpret the shape. The viewer is asked to enter his or her interpretation into the system again which serves as a new concept for Delilah to generate a new sentence from, which results again in a new visual shape.

Results
For example, the Dutch sentence “verwijder een aanpassingsproces en bestrijd dramatisch werk!” is a combined sentence of two Delilah clauses. When you replace the words by symbols using the following rules: verb = ‘+’, noun = ‘-‘, adjective = ‘|’, article = ‘[‘, conjunction = ‘]’, space = ‘F’; you will get the sequence: +F[F-F]F+F|F-. This sequence can be used as the string-rewriting rule that defines the L-System. This rule will be applied every iteration, resulting in complex visual shapes.

Programming code fragment used to generate string replacement rules, dependent on the words in a sentence.

Visualization made with L-systems resulting from the Dutch sentence: 'verwijder een aanpassingsproces en bestrijd dramatisch werk!'

There are some personal choices involved in building these rules, as the translation is based on a personal selection of symbols. These choices are influenced by our knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. For example, only the ‘F’ symbol yields visible output, so we need many ‘F’ symbols to see any interesting shape at all. Therefore, we chose to translate the space character to an ‘F’. However, this choice will result in every word being followed by a drawing command, and so each word will influence the actual shape directly and therefore this seems to be a logical choice.

One very important other occurrence of personal choice influencing the system is in how to treat the symbols to draw a shape on the screen. Different actions, colors, shapes and angles can be selected for this, which can also have its effect on which translations of words to rules work well. In short, the output depends very much on personal choices, but this does not make it less interesting.

Future work
An issue when using L-systems in this manner is of course that sentences with the same structure will yield the same results, as the translation to a L-system is not based on meaning or specific words, but on word types. This problem can be solved by using semantic structure instead of the grammatical structure of a text.

Furthermore, punctuation such as comma’s or exclamation marks could be used to effect the visualization.

Also, different variations can be thought of for different applications, such as tonal input to generate trees, so that people with speech impediments can try to “reach” a certain shape and thus learn to speak properly.

Finally, L-systems can be animated by already drawing a part of the visual shape during the iteration process. In this way, the system ‘grows’ during the generation of the L-system string. A finished visualization can also be animated by changing the way in which symbols are presented visually in real-time, for instance changing the angles of rotation or the length of the lines.

References

[1] Wikipedia about L-systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system

[2] C. Cremers, The Linguistics of Delilah - Delilah demo cd-rom