[In] modern Guatemala … Mayans remark that outsiders note things down not in order to remember them, but rather so as not to remember them.
—Nicholas Ostler
Peter J. Lang conducted a series of experiments [P. Lang, 1988] using a database of photographs (IAPS) as the emotional stimulus. Slides of diverse content were collected into this study, 480 in all. The content ranged from sexually explicit material, to human injury and surgical slides, to pleasant images of children and wildlife.
For each slide a measure of valence and arousal was assessed and plotted in a two-dimensional space. The quantification of valence and arousal was conducted by subjects using a Self-assessment Manikin (SAM) [Lang and Bradley, 1994]. Each subject was asked to view the slide and mark down on paper their assessment of the valence and arousal. The mean response was plotted on the two axes, see figure 2-1. Over hundreds of subjects, this technique yielded a high correlation between subjects and a low standard of deviation.
[Figure 2-1: Lang used pictorial images to represent the axis of valence and arousal to compensate for language connotation confusion or misunderstanding.]
After mapping out the valence-arousal space, Lang assigned emotionally descriptive labels, based on the content of the pictures, to several key areas of the space. The first quadrant contains the positive valence, high arousal stimuli that he called “joyful” or “excited”. The second quadrant (low valence high arousal) included areas of “hate”, “enraged”, and “fearful”.
This experiment has been verified numerous times. Three researchers in particular, Ward Winton, Lois Putnam and Robert Krauss, conducted a similar slide viewing self-assessment experiment [Ward Winton, Lois Putnam, and Robert Krauss, 1984] using sensors to monitor heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC). The introduction of these sensors provided a method for ascertaining the relationship between autonomic responses and the slide induced emotional experiences.
From http://vismod.media.mit.edu/tech-reports/TR-495/node6.html
Verge is a proposal for a tethered car. If a location and materials cannot be arranged then a prepared remote control car and a square of sod can be substituted.
Where the prepared car has been tethered to a stake the muddy ruts are deep and circumscribed by grass; or, the sod in the gallery was watered and kept alive by grow lights but trammled constantly by the remote control car.
Hang a bunch of machine guns that shoot rubber bullets on ropes from the ceiling. The machine guns, there are twenty-four or more of them, go off every hour, on the hour. They dance.
Hello,
For this year’s summer issue of Private Circulation there is not one PDF, there are fifteen PDFs: The A.K.A. issue. The index issue. The issue of appendices. The issue read by 23.7 people. The interactive issue. The A.D.D. issue. I.e., the “issues” issue.
(Email to receive a copy and click on images to download appendices.)
Best,
P.C.
This sixth issue of Priv. Circ. went out last weekend. This is the introduction from that email.
——– Original Message ——–
| Subject: | Some Cars of Brooklyn |
|---|---|
| Date: | Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:36:54 -0400 |
| From: | Private Circulation |
Dear reader,
[…]
A: No, I don’t think so. I have confidence moving forward that what I selected is good. I think what interests me the most with this particular map is that it’s a heavy urban area, but it’s also a very residential area. Brooklyn is the store-yard for much of Manhattan. Looking at satellite images from Manhattan you see the cars are very orderly. All of them are being used. The ones not in motion are stacked or parked nicely, orderly. Space there is at such a premium. Space in Brooklyn is also expensive, but not so much. People can afford to have wrecking yards. In Brooklyn there are flows of traffic and there are places where cars go to die, where they have not been used, where their use is to be taken apart for other cars. There are these odd triangulated lots, eddies apart from the stream where these dead cars go to rust. They get piled up and jammed together. I’m interested in these interstitial places. Places where you see a traffic stream and then you see a bunch of cars all jammed together. There is no way that they could move out of there except piece by piece.
Q: So this work isn’t about just demarcating where streets and parking lots are?
A: No, not at all.
Q: How do you know that when you are finished cutting these out your thoughts will be communicated through the end product?
A: I don’t. You never know anything for sure. I do know that the piece will be over 3 feet square, and I can sense that there will be a beauty to it. I can see patterns emerging already. Also, the act of cutting the cars out clears my mind. Besides the resistance of my muscles to repetitive labor, it is very soothing.
Q: Do you think that you’d do the project without an end product?
A: You mean just because?
Q: Yes. Just to give yourself something to do.
A: I don’t think so. But that’s a hard question because you don’t know for sure that there is ever an end.
Sincerely,
—The Editors
Parking at the Pentagon, inkjet on paper, 24 x 30 inches, 2008
There are even a couple of landlocked boats. Along the Long Island Railroad past Jamaica there is a boat tipped over with a jagged section of its hull missing. It rests alone in a vast parking lot with grass sticking through the concrete. This boat is not pictured here but for some reason grass growing between pads of concrete reminds me of this.
