We have the "slow food" movement, why not the "slow thinking" movement?

I finished reading “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman and rushed it back to the John Jermaine Library for the next person waiting in line to read this NY Times Top Book of 2011. (If you don’t want to read it, just check out this amazing illustration by Eva-Lotte Lamm and you’ll get the gist.) Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, has spent his career studying the psychology of judgement making. He describes dual cognitive processes at work in the human mind as System 1 and System 2; the former is an intuitive, automatic process of judgement (think gut reaction and mental shortcuts), the latter an analytical, rules-based slow process (think Math problems and SAT questions). These two systems work in concert to arrive at answers. I have sometimes mistakenly assumed (operative word here) that System 1 is a good place to reside most of the time – making decisions based on instinct and flow – but this book has radically changed my position. My take is that reliance on the kind of involuntary cognition that comes with System 1, while good for primitive man deciding which kind of large cat is going to eat him, has lead us to the present polarization of politics, and the media’s ease of manipulating information with little accountability. The media has a heyday with System 1 at the expense of the planet. As a population, we tend to be lazy when it comes to fact-checking and reasoning, despite the abundance of sources for such purposes. Overuse of System 1 thinking makes people susceptible to any news item that confirms one’s belief system and assumptions (we are especially vulnerable to the dominance of System 1 on hot button subjects like global warming, terrorism, patriotism) regardless of the facts. This is why I’m so attracted to science today, the field which holds a monopoly on System 2 thinking and “truth,” provided research isn’t funded entirely by private industry. There’s a compelling article that touches on this subject, “The State of the Scientist” by Steven Shapin in SEED.

“The increasing alignment of science with commercial institutions carries a risk: the loss in the public mind of the idea of an independent scientific voice — not truth speaking to power but power shaping what counts as truth.”

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Japanese competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi will go to heaven

My Italian grandmother used to say, “On the road to heaven, you’ll have to eat all the food you’ve wasted.” As a child, I imagined choking down every curdled glass of milk and maggot ridden fish filet like a contestant in some Japanese game show. The image was extremely effective, and for the most part I cleaned my plate.

On this Cyber Monday, another image popped into my mind: What if everything I bought from this day forward was with me FOREVER? What if every unfinished meal, children’s toy, ink cartridge, sofa, TV, handbag, appliance, CD, cell phone, computer and so on, I’ve ever owned was with me for life? Would I be inclined to buy more things if there was no way to dispose of what I already had? Since my Grandmother’s generation, Americans have doubled the amount of waste we produce daily–  now 4.43 pounds per person each day. That means, my actual weight (120 lbs.) plus all the garbage I’ve disposed of (67,103 lbs.) is hovering around 67,223 pounds. I’m Cyber Monday obese.

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After departing the intrepid Aurora Picture Show, I dreamed about creating a new breed of artist residency program– one that wasn’t a non-profit per-say, but more of an art bed and breakfast. As a result, I started pouring over historic properties for sale on the Eastern Seaboard, from Lighthouses to island retreats. We ended up in Sag Harbor, NY in a bungalow named “The Anchorage” where we’ve hosted at least a dozen artists on weekend vacations. A good in-between, but my dream of something more full-time is still in the future. In the meantime, I came across this incredible project in Canada: Fogo Island Arts Project (discovered again, on the blog Dezeen). Saunders Architects of Norway has designed the first of six artist’s quarters, inspired by fisherman’s houses, and perched above the coast line. The Fogo Island project also includes the design of a 29-room inn for artists and visitors.

According to Dezeen, "Similar to local fisherman’s houses, the studio sits on stilts and is clad in rough-sawn pine and whitewashed spruce on the interior... The building generates power using solar panels, treats its own waste and uses both rain and grey water."

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I often lament that the design of two things has not been markedly improved in the last 100 years: BEDS and CINEMAS. But this is a beautiful exception to the latter: “Curtain Call,” a cinematic environment by the artist/architect/designer, Ron Arad for Roundhouse, London. Read all about it on Dezeen.

Ron Arad's "Curtain Call" as covered in Dezeen

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I can die happy now that New Art/Science Affinities got an endorsement from Bruce Sterling in his WIRED blog Beyond the Beyond:

I read this book. It’s pretty good even if they made it in a week. Worth the fifty bucks, easy. – Bruce Sterling

Our first full review is in Post-Luddite Institute (“promoting awareness of our awareness”). And it’s a thoughtful one, too.

NA/SA could and should be a model for how art writing can be thorough, engaging and relevant, while still contemporary to the subjects it discusses… I applaud the creators for this, NA/SA treats itself as an editorial primer, a barometer of a movement in art that has a multitude of sub-groups and communities but is largely disinterested in constructing a larger mythology. – Georges Negri

And Bust Magazine calls it “the ultimate cuddle buddy.”

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"New Art/Science Affinities" focuses on artists working at the intersection of art, science and technology, and was produced by a collaborative authoring process known as a "book sprint."

Earlier this year I organized a “book sprint” (the collaborative authoring of a book in a condensed period of time) as part of my Warhol Curatorial Research Fellowship on art, science and technology at Carnegie Mellon’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Miller Gallery. I had the good fortune to form a week-long hive mind with writers Claire Evans, Régine Debatty, and Pablo Garcia, and designers Luke Bulman and Jessica Young of Thumb. We tackled Maker Culture, Hacking, Artistic Research, Citizen Science, and Computational Art, wrote about over 60 artists, and created a gigantic timeline that includes everything from the establishment of Radio Shack to Creative Commons and Kickstarter. WE DID THIS IN SEVEN DAYS, with little sleep and lots of instant feedback from faculty and students at CMU, as well as artists who generously skyped into the conversation at a moment’s notice. As of this week, the product of the sprint is out in the world and available as a free download or you can purchase a hard copy.

Official New Art/Science Affinities site:
http://millergallery.cfa.cmu.edu/nasabook

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Official Press Release
NEW ART/SCIENCE AFFINITIES

Contributors: Andrea Grover, Régine Debatty, Claire Evans, Pablo Garcia, Thumb Projects
Published by: Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University + CMU STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
Publication date: October 2011

The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University and the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry have co-published “New Art/Science Affinities,” a 190-page book on contemporary artists that was written and designed in one week by four authors (Andrea Grover, Régine Debatty, Claire Evans and Pablo Garcia) and two designers (Luke Bulman and Jessica Young of Thumb).

“New Art/Science Affinities,” which focuses on artists working at the intersection of art, science and technology, was produced by a collaborative authoring process known as a “book sprint.” Derived from “code sprinting,” a method in which software developers gather in a single room to work intensely on an open source project for a certain period of time, the term book sprint describes the quick, collective writing of a topical book.

The book includes meditations, interviews, diagrams, letters and manifestos on maker culture, hacking, artist research, distributed creativity, and technological and speculative design. Chapters include Program Art or Be Programmed, Subvert! Citizen Science, Artists in White Coats and Latex Gloves, The Maker Moment and The Overview Effect.

Sixty international artists and art collaboratives are featured, including Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Atelier Van Lieshout, Brandon Ballengée, Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, The Institute for Figuring, Aaron Koblin, Machine Project, Openframeworks, C.E.B. Reas, Philip Ross, Tomás Saraceno, SymbioticA, Jer Thorp, and Marius Watz.

The authors collectively wrote and designed the book during seven, 10-14 hour-days in February 2011 at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. During their sessions they held conversations with CMU faculty, staff and students from the STUDIO, Miller Gallery, College of Fine Arts, Robotics Institute, Machine Learning Department and BXA Intercollege Degree Program.

“The book sprint method was adopted in order to understand this very moment in art, science and technology hybrid practices, and to mirror the ways Internet culture and networked communication have accelerated creative collaborations, expanded methodologies, and given artists greater agency to work fluidly across disciplines,” says lead author Andrea Grover.

The publication is part of Grover’s Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Research Fellowship at CMU’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and Miller Gallery. “Intimate Science,” an exhibition that will be the product of Grover’s research, will take place in early 2012 at the Miller Gallery.

“New Art/Science Affinities” (2011, 8.5×11 inches, 190 pages, perfect-bound paperback, 232 full-color illustrations) is available for purchase ($45.75) through print-on-demand service Lulu, or for free download via the Miller Gallery website (http://www.cmu.edu/millergallery/nasabook).

EXCERPT FROM FOREWORD:

We launched our book sprint in order to produce a snapshot of this particular moment—and because we wanted to do it with immediacy, without distraction. The topic of this publication is the most recent manifestation of artists working in art, science, and technology, which we broadly define as work that adopts processes of the natural or physical sciences, “does strange things with electricity” (to borrow a phrase from Dorkbot), breaks from traditional models of art/science pairings, and was created within the last five years. We realize that art, science, and technology intersections have a tradition with much deeper roots than we have space to detail here (and that such histories have been given attention elsewhere), so we’ve provided in a timeline a brief subjective history of innovations, movements, and cultural events that have contributed to this tradition and led us to this moment. To be clear: this book is an effort to understand this very moment in art, science, and technology affinities, and the ways Internet culture and networked communication have shaped the practice.

—Andrea Grover
Project Lead, Warhol Curatorial Fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

08 INTRODUCTION
11 Program Art or Be Programmed
C.E.B. Reas / Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / Jer Thorp / Marius Watz / Aaron Koblin
With comments from: Golan Levin

29 SUBVERT!
Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley / Sebastian Brajkovic / Julius von Bismarck / Paul Vanouse / Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev / Marco Donnarumma / Willy Sengewald (TheGreenEyl) / Boredomresearch
With comments from: Julian Oliver & Danja Vasiliev, Johannes Grenzfurthner

57 CITIZEN SCIENCE
Cesar Harada / HeHe / Critter / Machine Project / Center for PostNatural History / Institute for Figuring
With comments from: Cesar Harada, Fred Adams

73 ARTISTS IN WHITE COATS AND LATEX GLOVES
Brandon Ballengée / Gilberto Esparza / Philip Ross / BCL / Kathy High /
Fernando Orellana / SWAMP / Agnes Meyer-Brandis /
SymbioticA and Tissue Culture & Art Project
With comments from: Phil Ross, Adam Zaretsky

107 THE MAKER MOMENT
Machine Project / Thomas Thwaites / Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki /
John Cohr / Free Art Technology (F.A.T.), Openframeworks,
The Graffiti Research Lab, and the Ebeling Group
With comments from: Geraldine Juarez, Mark Allen, Jonah Brucker-Cohen

131 THE OVERVIEW EFFECT
Tomàs Saraceno / Dunne & Raby / Sascha Pohflepp / Bruce Sterling /
Atelier van Lieshout / etoy
With comments from: Jeff Lieberman, Sascha Pohflepp, Wendy Fok

157 Intermediary: The Scientific Evangelist
168 CHRONOLOGY
A subjective chronology of art, science, and technology
180 Bibliography
184 Contributors/Acknowledgments
185 Image Credits
188 The 200 most used words in this book
190 Colophon

CONTRIBUTORS

Régine Debatty is a blogger, curator and critic whose work focuses on the intersection between art, science and social issues.

Claire L. Evans is a writer, science journalist, science-fiction critic, and the author of Universe, a blog addressing the intersections between science and culture. She is also an artist and musician in the band YACHT.

Andrea Grover is a curator, artist and writer. She is the founder of Aurora Picture Show, Houston, and has curated exhibitions on art, technology, and collectivity for apexart, New York, and Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. She is presently Associate Curator at Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York.

Pablo R. Garcia is the founder and principal of POiNT, a collaborative and multidisciplinary research studio based in Pittsburgh. POiNT is dedicated to experiments in the spatial arts—architecture, design, and the visual and performing arts, in a variety of scales from the portable to the urban.

Thumb is a Brooklyn and Baltimore-based graphic design office that was established as a partnership between Jessica Young and Luke Bulman in 2007. Thumb is fond of fluorescent inks, microscopic art, live and immediate processes, color, Ebay, shape, very glossy paper, discs, surprises, diagrams, rainbow paper, and awkward transitions.

Publishers

The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry is a center for experimental and interdisciplinary arts in the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. Founded in 1989, the STUDIO connects artistic enterprises to academic disciplines across the Carnegie Mellon campus, to the community of Pittsburgh and beyond. The STUDIO’s mission is to support creation and exploration in the arts, especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts, sciences, technology, and the humanities, and impact local and global communities.

The Miller Gallery is Carnegie Mellon University’s contemporary art gallery. The Miller Gallery supports experimentation that expands the notions of art and culture, providing a forum for engaged conversations about creativity and innovation. The gallery produces exhibitions, projects, events and publications with a focus on social issues, and is free and open to the public

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I’m going to be participating in the October 14, 2011 conference, Expanding the Documentary, at SUNY Purchase thanks to event co-organizers Michelle Stewart and Brooke Singer. Other participants include Steve Dietz, Skip Blumberg, Ryan Griffis (Temporary Travel Office) and a bunch of other rad folks. Hope to see you there!

From the conference website:

Artists, in recent years, have pioneered forms of interactive, environmental, and database art that document socio-political, cultural, and natural phenomena that were once the purview of the film and video documentary. While film and video had the ability to collect, record, narrate, and argue about the historical world, expanded documentarians utilize the full palette of digital media in order to engage audiences, participants, and users in the production, archiving, and mapping of the real.  Interactive and multimedia works implicate spectators in the production of information and arguments about the world, foregrounding the public nature of the construction of knowledge. For these reasons, we believe this conversation about Expanded Documentary is timely and important, featuring workshops that highlight the newest practices in documentary work.

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I started uploading old videos to Vimeo today. Some are home movies shot in Houston, Texas– many in my former home/church/cinema (Aurora Picture Show)– and others are documentation of projects I’ve worked on over the last five years. When I began cataloging these items, I realized I have a surprising number of videos of carnivals, circuses, and amusement parks. I hope you, and the cloud, enjoy these unedited video snapshots.

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I'm looking for something a little more compact than a Sony Portapak

I’ve noticed that many artists are now shooting video with DSLRs because of their higher quality lenses and versatile shooting formats. I was hoping that I could purchase one for recording artists’ interviews and lectures, but I’ve learned that DSLRs can only record a limited amount of video (up to 29 minutes continuously) in most cases. Drat. This means I’m back to looking at video cameras.

Photo peeps, please recommend an HD video camera that can:

• shoot in a variety of situations, including low light in lecture halls
• has a microphone input
• has a kick ass lens
• costs around $1000 (stop laughing)

Domo arigato.

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The "Marlinspike" off the east coast of Shelter Island

This past weekend we took an afternoon cruise with Charter boat Captain Anthony “Anton” Hagen. We anchored off Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island, swam to shore and pretended to hunt for buried treasure with the kids. Our booty included a Vidalia onion, a terry cloth visor, and a small deck cushion (a quality one that probably fell off a yacht). We used the cushion to float back to the boat, and took the onion home to cook (so we claimed), but the visor was a little too “salty,” even for us hard bitten pirates.

Captain Hagen was a superb, knowledgeable guide, having lived in the area for three decades. I highly recommend his vessel “Marlinspike,” with its swim ladder, abundant shade, kitchen and bathroom, for your next expedition in Sag Harbor Bay or the surrounding waterways. Email captainhagen-at-hotmail.com or phone 631-456-1823.

The "Marlinspike," a 36’ lobster yacht in action

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