Donna Haraway: How Like a Leaf: An Interview with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve (1999)
Filed under book | Tags: · animal, biology, body, capitalism, critical theory, cyborg, feminism, genetics, history of science, human, interview, metaphor, nature, politics, race, science, semiotics, technoscience, women
A lengthy interview-conversation that covers aspects of both Haraway’s life and work.
Publisher Routledge, 1999
ISBN 0415924022, 9780415924023
197 pages
Reviews: Tony Scott (Kairos, 2000), Erika Bourguignon (NWSA Journal, 2001).
Commentary: McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2015).
PDF (2 MB, updated on 2018-5-11)
Comment (0)Robert Rosen: Essays on Life Itself (1999)
Filed under book | Tags: · algorithm, anticipation, biology, causality, complex systems, complexity, environment, life, machine, mathematics, mind, philosophy of science, physics, science, semantics, systems theory, technology, theory
“In this collection of twenty-two essays, Rosen takes to task the central objective of the natural sciences, calling into question the attempt to create objectivity in a subjective world. The book opens with an exploration of the interaction between biology and physics, unpacking Schrödinger´s famous text What Is Life? and revealing the shortcomings of the notion that artificial intelligence can truly replicate life.
He also refutes the thesis that mathematical models of reality can be reflected entirely in algorithms, that is, are of a purely syntactical character. He argues that it is the noncomputable, nonformalizable nature of biology that makes organisms complex, and that these systems are generic, whereas those systems described by reductionistic reasoning are simple and rare.
An intriguing enigma links all of the essays: ‘How can science explain the unpredictable?'”
Publisher Columbia University Press, 1999
Complexity in Ecological Systems series
ISBN 023110510X, 9780231105101
x+360 pages
Reviews: Bruce J. West (Quarterly Review of Biology, 2001), Donald C. Mikulecky (c1999).
PDF (removed on 2019-10-30 upon request from Judith Rosen)
Comment (0)L. Moholy-Nagy: Vision in Motion (1947)
Filed under book | Tags: · abstraction, architecture, art, art education, bauhaus, biology, design, film, image, industrial design, life, light, literature, machine, motion, painting, perception, photography, poetry, sculpture, technology, visual communication, visual poetry
“This book is written for the artist and the layman, for everyone interested in his relationship to our existing civilization. It is an extension of my previous book, The New Vision. But while The New Vision gave mainly particulars about the educational methods of the old Bauhaus, Vision in Motion concentrates on the work of the Institute of Design, Chicago, and presents a broader, more general view of the interrelatedness of art and life.” (from the author’s foreword)
Publisher Paul Theobald, Chicago, 1947
371 pages
PDF (114 MB, no OCR)
Comments (2)