Len Lye: Figures of Motion. Selected Writings (1984)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, art history, film, literature, sculpture
Editors Wystan Curnow, Roger Horrocks
Publisher Auckland University Press, 1984
ISBN 0196479967, 9780196479965
Length 152 pages
PDF (no OCR)
Comment (0)Turbulence journal 1-5 (2007-2009)
Filed under journal | Tags: · activism, capitalism, climate crisis, neoliberalism, networks, politics
Turbulence is a journal/newspaper that we hope will become an ongoing space in which to think through, debate and articulate the political, social, economic and cultural theories of our movements, as well as the networks of diverse practices and alternatives that surround them.
What would it mean to win?
Turbulence 1, 2007
The Turbulence collective produced 7,000 copies of a free 32-page newspaper distributed at the camps, blockades and alternative summits that made up the mobilisation against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in June 2007. The theme of the 14 articles from individuals and groups from across the world tackled the difficult question of ‘What would it mean to win?’.
PDF (original tabloid format, 289 x 380mm)
PDF (journal format, 152 x 229mm)
Move into the light?
Turbulence 3, December 2007
6,000 copies were printed in English, with a further 4,000 in German.
PDF (A6 booklet)
PDF (German version)
Who can save us from the future?
Turbulence 4, Summer 2008
Today, the very act of thinking about the future has become a problem. What both capitalism and ‘really existing socialism’ had in common was the belief in a future where infinite happiness would spring from the infinite expansion of production: sacrifices made in the present could always be justified in terms of a brighter future. And now? The socialist future has been dead since the fall of the Berlin wall. After that we seemed to live in a world where only the capitalist future existed (even when it was under attack). But now this future, too, is having its obituaries composed, and impending doom is the talk of the town. The ‘crisis of the future’ – that is, of our capacity to think about the future – is born out of these twin deaths: today it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
And Now for Something Completely Different?
Turbulence 5, December 2009
Until recently, anyone who suggested nationalising the banks would have been derided as a ‘quack’ and a ‘crank’, as lacking the most basic understanding of the functioning of a ‘complex, globalised world’. The grip of ‘orthodoxy’ disqualified the idea, and many more, without the need even to offer a counter-argument.
And yet, in this time of intersecting crises, when it seems like everything could, and should, have changed, it paradoxically feels as though very little has. Individuals and companies have hunkered down to try and ride out the crisis. Nationalisations and government spending have been used to prevent change, not initiate it. Anger and protest have erupted around different aspects of the crises, but no common or consistent reaction has seemed able to cohere. We appear unable to move on.
For many years, social movements could meet and recognise one another on the common ground of rejecting neoliberalism, society’s old middle ground – those discources and practices that defined the centre of the political field. The crisis of the middle has meant a crumbling of the common.
And what now? Will neoliberalism continue to stumble on without direction, zombie-like? Or, is it time for something completely different?
Comment (0)Ben Fry: Visualizing Data (2008)
Filed under manual | Tags: · code, data visualisation, design, processing, programming
How you can take advantage of data that you might otherwise never use? With the help of the free software programming environment called Processing, this book helps you represent data accurately on the Web and elsewhere, complete with user interaction, animation, and more. You’ll learn basic visualization principles, how to choose the right kind of display for your purposes, and how to provide interactive features to design entire interfaces around large, complex data sets.
Enormous quantities of data go unused or underused today, simply because people can’t visualize the quantities and relationships in it. Using a downloadable programming environment developed by the author, Visualizing Data demonstrates methods for representing data accurately on the Web and elsewhere, complete with user interaction, animation, and more.
How do the 3.1 billion A, C, G and T letters of the human genome compare to those of a chimp or a mouse? What do the paths that millions of visitors take through a web site look like? With Visualizing Data, you learn how to answer complex questions like these with thoroughly interactive displays. We’re not talking about cookie-cutter charts and graphs. This book teaches you how to design entire interfaces around large, complex data sets with the help of a powerful new design and prototyping tool called “Processing”.
Used by many researchers and companies to convey specific data in a clear and understandable manner, the Processing beta is available free. With this tool and Visualizing Data as a guide, you’ll learn basic visualization principles, how to choose the right kind of display for your purposes, and how to provide interactive features that will bring users to your site over and over. This book teaches you:
* The seven stages of visualizing data — acquire, parse, filter, mine, represent, refine, and interact
* How all data problems begin with a question and end with a narrative construct that provides a clear answer without extraneous details
* Several example projects with the code to make them work
* Positive and negative points of each representation discussed. The focus is on customization so that each one best suits what you want to convey about your data set
The book does not provide ready-made “visualizations” that can be plugged into any data set. Instead, with chapters divided by types of data rather than types of display, you’ll learn how each visualization conveys the unique properties of the data it represents — why the data was collected, what’s interesting about it, and what stories it can tell. Visualizing Data teaches you how to answer questions, not simply display information.
Publisher O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2008
ISBN 0596514557, 9780596514556
Length 366 pages