December 5th, 2008

Disclaimer

or: Statement of freedom (for ideas).

I, as the writer, am hearby allowed or granted the right to:

1 – change my mind, thus leading to: disagreement with previous statements, negating them, conflicting statements, dubious statements, contradictions, ambiguous statements and so on…
1.1
– change and/or completely remove statements (on previous posts)
1.2
– (interchangeably) agree or disagree with others at any given moment

2 – write about anything, from what is important to what (I might even consider) superfluous
2.1
– not distinguish the above classes (a priori)
2.2 – not limit the horizon of writing based on (high) word count, clarity, originality, falseability or importance
2.3
– contain any number of meta-referential layers within anything written, even if that hinders complete understanding, thus not taking readers as idiots and requiring of them special attention while reading what’s not written

3 – write about things if which I have no extensive knowledge, or (any degree of) previous knowledge for that matter (without notice)
3.1
– intentionally write about things about which I have never thought of, researched, etc. so as to improve/advance my knowledge of them solely based on what I know of other things
3.2
– require of readers arbitrary levels of technical knowledge to understanding what I write
3.3
– include/use/cite any number of references (including zero) and even require them to be read (without notice) to make myself understood.

4 – Change this disclaimer from time to time

5 – Doubt and understand, but never believe. Not necessarily.

Filed by rhwinter at December 5th, 2008 under meta
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June 21st, 2007

Everything you always wanted to know…

… about everything you always wanted to know.

Filed by rhwinter at June 21st, 2007 under circular, meta, short
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March 23rd, 2007

Handmade ‘Folha de S. Paulo’

'Folha de São Paulo' feita a mão

Statement

In this image there are two elements which are a clear allusion to what I intended to convey: first it is handmade, second, and this might not be so clear to those who do not live in Brazil or, even, São Paulo, it represents the cover of a very big local newspaper. Given these two elements, the possible unfolding can already be envisioned pretty clearly, especially because it is being presented in this space. (I want to make it clear that there was no intention to bring up the specific subjects of the particular edition of the newspaper I chose.)

This being a handmade drawing addresses the complicated, and often dualistically simplified, relations between humans and machines and the creations sprouted from these relations. More specifically those mediated entirely by computers as opposed to those which are mediated by tangible mediums, in this case: blogs vs. newspapers (or periodicals in general). In this specific context it is particularly important to mention the facts that blogs are created by ordinary people, are often biased and, more than anything, are usually open to discussion. Thus, blogs tend to promote direct relations, but, at the same time, they are presented in a medium which has not been entirely incorporated in most people’s lives, which introduces a certain limitation to these interactions.

Newspapers, on the other hand, are almost everywhere and they don’t provide direct communication channels (between readers and writers). Maybe because of this they have acquired an almost super-human status, dictating what/how/when one should think. With all its seriousness, given by both the way it is shown to us and by the “important” themes it presents, a newspaper seems formal and entirely machine-made, with the intention to disclose some sort of absolute truth. It has to convince the reader that it is worth reading (this has, of course, origins in the fact that newspapers are also commodities). But the interplay between the importance of what is presented and the fact that we know that newspapers are, ultimately, expressions of human thought is exactly what paves way to its deconstruction: it easily becomes obvious that newspapers are also biased, they are, as much as blogs, the products of whoever makes them. Newspapers carry the contradiction between their proposal (evidencing facts) and the means to reach it (an analysis of reality carried out by humans).

A contradiction which is, for obvious reasons, not clearly evidenced by newspapers themselves: no newspaper would ever have an entirely handmade front cover. They could make it, and surely in a much more appealing way than I did, so it is not because of a technical difficulty, but because it would make no sense to do it. And this is another important aspect of the discussion I want to bring up: what are the things that make sense in a newspaper? What are the things that make sense in a blog? How do the techniques involved in the creation of each of these limit what they can present?

There is undeniable freedom in whatever topics are approached in a blog: there is no editor, there is no need to review content, there are practically no boundaries, there is no need to please anyone. Which is, the way I see it, an evidence of the selfishness of blogging; despite the fact that they are thought of as a means to bring people together. Not that newspapers aren’t like that, but it seems that newspapers are much more attached to an ideology, a corporate conduct that dictates a more or less strict path of thinking; in a sense newspapers express ‘collective selfishness’, they are concerned with what is important to all their readers/buyers.

When we compare newspapers and blogs, a big difference that comes up is that the latter are allowed to change, they are allowed to shift and modify their ideas as much as the writers are willing to (by running the risk of discrediting themselves). Blogs are fluid, they are changing, the very medium in which they are written allows for them to be modified in a way that newspapers can’t: once you commit and article to a newspaper the only way of going back is by writing another, but you can always change (and even delete) a blog post.

Because of all this, blogs force us to permanently question them, they bring doubt, and doubt is thought, independence. Instead of having a swarm of information thrown at you by a large chunk of paper, which you must incorporate and be ready to spill out in appropriate moments, you are required to make your own mind about what you (choose to) read and form your opinions. And, as much as reading newspapers has confused the way we read blogs, blogs are changing the way we read newspapers.

This very essay is an evidence of all this. For instance, in the third paragraph, when I state that newspapers “have acquired an almost super-human status, dictating what/how/when one should think (…) with the intention to disclose some sort of absolute truth” a series of questions emerge: in which context is this true? For whom? Is is true at all? I am not entirely sure myself (which leads us back to the conclusions in paragraph six).

Thus, by presenting, on a blog, a handmade image of a newspaper we are exposed to a series of questions and contradictions between the forms and mediums in which all of these three elements exist and are expressed, requiring us to (re)evaluate them.

Even higher resolution image here.
[Some of these ideas or related, have already been discussed elsewhere from a different angle]

Filed by rhwinter at March 23rd, 2007 under art, meta
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January 19th, 2007

Silence

Silêncio/Silence

Or is it? “Noise” is going analog for the next few weeks, which means I won’t be able to post for some time. But don’t despair: I wrote some things which are scheduled to be automatically published!!! (I’m not sure it will work, but…)

During this time I won’t be able to approve/reply comments either, but don’t let that stop you from commenting: as soon as I come back I’ll sort them all through.

So, don’t remove “Noise” from your readers, lines, buckets, reddits, boxes, rojos, etc just yet!

Filed by rhwinter at January 19th, 2007 under meta
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January 3rd, 2007

noise???

Yes, noise. But… what do you mean noise?
Noise is intended to be a blog about many things, among them:

and all these geeky stuff nerds seem to like so much. But wait, pay a lot of attention now, there are somethings you won’t find here:

and all these things I don’t like. Well, ok, maybe some of these you’ll eventually find here, but forgive me in advance.

The goal is noise, generating noise; after all what is another blog if not only noise?…

Filed by rhwinter at January 3rd, 2007 under meta
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