randform

A couple of days ago at lunch I learned about this deterministic “model” for random walks. (more…)

I attached a little silvery chain to a mathematical curve template in order to illustrate the difference between a catenary and a parabola.

Then I put the curve template (also called french curve, also on google images) into the dishwasher in order to get it upright for an orderly scientific photo. The forks and knives in the image are disturbing, but well one has to live with them for now.

The experiment displays a line which is described by a hanging chain.

If one compares it with the line of a parabola given by the function f(x)=x^2 (on the curve template) then one sees that the two lines are only almost fitting and in fact a better mathematical model for a hanging chain is the catenary, given by the cosh function f(x)=cosh(x), i.e. the hyperbolic cosine (not to be confused with a hyperbola). The model is constructed via the physical picture of many chain links taking each other by the hand which are subject to a constant gravitational force, or in other words: if you cut the chain at various points then the repective chunks would fall down separately.
There are very beautiful partially interactive links on the Wikipedia catenary site, which illustrate this.

The above observation is already described in this old mathematical physics paper from the early 17th century, which is beautifully accessible thanks to the work of people who had fun with mathematics. There is also a tender drawing of down parabolas.

-> about parabolic flight

(more…)

While tidying up I found the above vinyl records. Some people swear on the sound of vinyl. Some dont hear a difference to the digital. I think one should be less dogmatic about vinyl vs. digital. Its the sound that is different and not the music. Both are ok.

In any case: “Sonne statt Reagan” (sun instead of rain/Reagan) should also be on YOU-TUBE.

(more…)

submarine produced an animated and set to music version of the graphic novel the killer by Jacamon and Matz. While the sujet is not my favorite I found the style pretty impressive.

Some Monthy Python for the rest of the weekend:

-> youtube link.

While the chess human-computer show duell between the world champion Kramnik (human) and Deep Fritz (software) has reached its half time (more…)

Ira Schneider talking about his and others works at Treffpunkt NBK/meeting point NBK (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein) on Nov. 15, 2006

At the Treffpunkt “In and out of context” Ira Schneider was showing excerpts of old and new video works, including a videowork, which is a video documentation about a current exhibition in Madrid called “First Generation: Art and the Moving Image 1963-1986” (see also here). This video documentation was finished 3 hours before his presentation at the Treffpunkt.

Hence I am reporting now about a recent real life documentation about a brand new video documentation which is about a current museum documentation about video culture in the seventies/eighties (which videos are probably documenting also all sorts of things)…. – so no wonder that this made me think about iterations/recursions and convergence/fixpoints and hence fractals which are usually sets of fixpoints…:)

Ira Schneiders documentation treasured every moment and interaction, he named almost every person in his video. His mixture of documenting the things/works and the “life around” them displayed his true wish to understand the humans involved with the objects and situations they have to deal with.

And yes – I was reminded of Prousts famous citation from La Prisonnière (1923), and I will cite it again (also if I hear already the berlinAntikitschPolice coming). Can one say that (at least) this citation is a kind of literature fixpoint (??:-O):

Le seul véritable voyage, le seul bain de Jouvence, ce ne serait pas d’aller vers de nouveaux paysages, mais d’avoir d’autres yeux, de voir l’univers avec les yeux d’un autre, de cent autres, de voir les cent univers que chacun d’eux voit, que chacun d’eux est.

The NBK – a collective for supporting Berlin artists – is hosting next to their exhibitions, lectures etc. an Artothek i.e. a “public library” to loan out artworks. You can support NBK by e.g. bying one of the Jahresgaben and – being a recurrent theme – I couldn’t resist to link to Guenther Ueckers Jahresgabe..:)

—————————————————————————————————————-
Below are some excerpts from Ira Schneiders exhibition:”Mysteries in Reality”: his installations echo (1975) and timezones (1980) (where echo was in a seperate room, as are his video works) and his contributions to the famous magazine radical software (where I recommend to read also the intro by David Ross at that link). The big hall at NBK contains also stills – or almost stills…:) : – like snow and water.