constellations: recent

recent

(804) The Constellations site relocates to Folksonomy.org.uk

Simon Perkins (18-01-2009)

Utterance:

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CONSTELLATIONS SITE HAS BEEN REPLACED BY THE FOLKSONOMY SITE LOCATED AT: http://folksonomy.org.uk

This site is now being published for archive purposes only. All Constellations site entries have been copied to this new location and can be accessed through a much more comprehensive (and contemporary) indexing system (a folksonomy).

The following outlines the impetus for this new tool: About Folksonomy.org.uk.

Motivation:

Web: About Folksonomy.org.uk (18-01-2009)

Prompt: Launch of The Folksonomy Integration Tool !

(803) Launch of The Folksonomy Integration Tool !

Simon Perkins (21-10-2008)

Utterance:

I have just completed developing the Folksonomy application. The application represents an effort to further my interrogation of the Constellations metaphor.

As a user of the application you will be able to build connections and integrate references useful to your research/creative practice. It will provide opportunities for you to discover connections between your enquiry and the enquiry of members of the Folksonomy community. Your participation will also help me with my research.

Folksonomy is a structured repository and pedagogical tool. It has been designed to support the concept building process used by creative practitioners. It helps users to identify conceptual links during their 'data collection'. It simplifies the process of collecting text references, photographs and YouTube video clips useful for supporting research enquiry. In this way the application not only streamlines reference collection but also supports users in their identification of creative concepts.

Significantly the application employs a 'bottom-up' taxonomic method to organise content. This method is colloquially referred to as a 'folksonomy' - where content is able to simultaneously belong to multiple and sometimes contradictory categories. The logic of a folksonomy sits in stark contrast to the more traditional logic conventionally employed by libraries and computer operating systems where books and files are organised according to linear, centralised and hierarchical regimens.

Folksonomies provide a way of leveraging the potential of ambiguity inherent in language. They provide a means of privileging interpretation and multiplicity over universality and singularity. As an application of this logic Folksonomy helps to expose the changeable and evolving nature of meaning as "we language reality into [and out of] existence" (Whorf 1956).

Download the Folksonomy User Guide here.

Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought and reality. New York, Wiley.

Image: , (). Folksonomy.org.uk. , : Simon Perkins []

Motivation:

Web: Folksonomy.org.uk (21-10-2008)

Prompt: Adorno's Constellation: juxtaposed rather than integrated cluster of changing elements

Catalyst:

[integration] The Constellations site relocates to Folksonomy.org.uk

(802) external memory on council flat wallpaper

Simon Perkins (22-05-2008)

Utterance:

Drako Zarhazar remembers a lot about the past but not much about the present. He knows that he got married, and that he used to model for Dalí, but forgets nearly everything else. Yet this doesn't seem to bother him. He has created a sort of external memory on the paper that covers every surface of his Brighton council flat.

- ©Phil Daoust (The Guardian)

Image: , (). Drako Zarhazar. , : []

Motivation:

Web: It's My Story (23-05-2008)

Prompt: Memento: a life in Polaroids

(801) Our identity is created through our personalisation of our brains

Simon Perkins (20-05-2008)

Utterance:

[Susan] Greenfield poses her questions, and frames her search for answers, in neuroscientific terms. "Our identity," she says "is our brains"; more specifically, it lies in "the personalised connectivity of an otherwise generic brain". Brains are plastic and this lies at the root of her concerns. They respond to experience by changing the way their neurones are wired together - the number of connections and their strength. This is how we mature and acquire those skills that enable us to function in the world. But its plasticity also makes the brain susceptible to unwelcome and unforeseeable influences. Twenty-first-century technologies may bend our brains, and hence erode our identities, in ways previous generations could not have envisaged.

- ©Raymond Tallis (The Sunday Times)

Image: Collin, Ludovic (). Branching brain cells. , : []

Motivation:

Web: iD: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century by Susan Greenfield (20-05-2008)

Prompt: Education within a context of fast-moving advances in science and technology

(800) Narrative is a fundamental means through which people live their lives

Simon Perkins (19-05-2008)

Utterance:

Narrative is a fundamental means through which people experience their lives, or through which they actually live their lives. It is the narratives in which we situate our experience. Human experience is always narrated, and human knowledge and personal identities are constructed and revised through intersubjectively shared narratives. The narrative is a primary act of mind; "the primary scheme by which human existence is rendered meaningful" (Polkinghorne 1988, 11). The reflexive project of knowing and achieving an identity is to sustain a coherent, yet continuously revised, narrative about ourselves and the world we live in.

- ©H.L.T. Heikkinen, R. Huttunen & L. Kakkori

Image: , (). my high school years. , : Gerry Britt []

Motivation:

Web: And this story is true... On the Problem of narrative truth (20-05-2008)

Prompt: after universal grand narratives: shared narrative, narrative flows

(799) The Face of Sydney

Simon Perkins (12-05-2008)

Utterance:

Using specialist techniques, thousands of portraits of individual people have been compacted to provide a representative male and female "look" for the 160,000 residents of Sydney's City of Villages.

- ©The Council of the City of Sydney, Australia

Image: , (). Faces of Redfern. Sydney, Australia: The Council of the City of Sydney, []

Motivation:

Web: The Face of Sydney (12-05-2008)

Prompt: One World with Many Faces: standardised images of a heterogeneous subject

(798) Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of the state capitals

Simon Perkins (11-05-2008)

Utterance:

A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. [...]

Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of the state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a *sense* of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.

- ©Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)

Image: , (). Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. , : [Eddie McGuire]

Motivation:

Web: Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen. (Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury) (11-05-2008)

Prompt: the War on Terror and other conservative catchphrases

(797) A Cornish Sourcebook: cornovia.org.uk

Simon Perkins (09-05-2008)

Utterance:

A personal website created and maintained by Chris Bond of the Royal Institution of Cornwall.
...
The website features a comprehensive index to the historical place names of Cornwall, useful when researching local and family history; historical illustrations of ancient Cornwall; old maps and plans of Cornwall; a large number of historical texts relating to the topography, archaeology, history and folklore of Cornwall; illustrations and engravings of Cornwall; transcripts of parish and manor bounds, mostly from the 17th century; public domain photographs; a large number of high quality images of old postcards of Cornwall; and The Cornovia Press, where visitors can purchase books written by, or published by, Chris Bond.

Image: , (c.1908). Lelant Ferry, Uny Lelant. , : [Argall's Series (not numbered)]

Motivation:

Web: A Cornish Sourcebook - cornovia.org.uk (09-05-2008)

Prompt: Seven Up! series: glimpses of Britain's future

(796) Global Tribalism Employed as Christian Survival Tactic

Simon Perkins (05-05-2008)

Utterance:

We are more committed to seeing [Christianity] extended than we are about individual church growth. Instead of being the biggest church in the area, our desire is to church the area! All healthy organisms reproduce. It is in their DNA to look beyond themselves to the next generation or the species dies. Healthy churches strive for multiplication on every level — disciples, churches and clusters.

Glocalnet appears to be a Christian organisational structure devised as a modern survival tactic. The tactic appears to be an attempt to reinvigorate the Christian proselytisation project through leveraging the power of the network.

Image: , (). human foamy virus. , : [Christopher D. Meiering and Maxine L. Linial]

Motivation:

Web: Church Multiplication (06-05-2008)

Prompt: Enterprise Webs: a recombinant business structure

(794) The Old Bailey Proceedings Online Project

Simon Perkins (03-05-2008)

Utterance:

The Old Bailey Proceedings Online makes available a fully searchable, digitised collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913, and of the Ordinary of Newgate's Accounts, 1690 to 1772. It allows access to over 210,000 trials and biographical details of approximately 3,000 men and women executed at Tyburn, free of charge for non-commercial use.

In addition to the text, accessible through both keyword and structured searching, this website provides digital images of all 190,000 original pages of the Proceedings, 5,000 pages of Ordinary's Accounts, advice on methods of searching this resource, information on the historical and legal background to the Old Bailey court and its Proceedings, and descriptions of published and manuscript materials relating to the trials covered. Contemporary maps, and images have also been provided.

This website is published by HRI Online Publications.

Image: , (1808). An Old Bailey trial circa 1808.. , : The City of London []

Motivation:

Web: The Old Bailey Proceedings Online Project (04-05-2008)

Prompt: BBC Creative Archive: public access rights

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