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4Th Door Review Copy1 WORDWORKS 1 WORDWORKS 1 Pretzel logic revisited Paul Ryan explores Earthscore Notation Systems, ecochannels, This short essay explores Ryan’s Video Dimension as outlined in and the future of Memory, all within a video context. his recent ‘Video Mind, Earth Mind’. ew uses of video and television for the green and classroom based educational orthodoxies. In the the goals and practise of the bioregionalist movement, logical webs of nature that exist in the midst of our movement and its media dimension have been early seventies Ryan explored the cybernetic ideas of amongst others. The bioregional ethic recognises the lives. Thus with the aid of video human communica- Nrelatively few and far between. Where such use Gregory Bateson and Warren McCulloch. Cybernetics – biological-geographical, rather than the political bor- tion, could find a grounding in eco-systems outside the has occurred it has been piecemeal and has tended to the science of systems of control both in living crea- ders of a region or watershed. Multispecies rather than limitations of language. apply the conventional vocabulary of TV and video to tures and machines – in Bateson’s words, “recognises anthropocentric in approach it combines rigorous sci- green issues. Video, after its radical countercultural that the ‘self’ as ordinarily understood is only a small entific data about local ecosystems with regional folk- Is the human species language-driven? birthrites, has settled into being merely another tech- part of a much larger trial-and-error system which does lore so that people of bioregions can attempt to live in nological art genre, its promise as an instrument for the thinking, acting and deciding”.Thus the much larg- place and within the carrying capacity of that place. As mentioned, Ryan was involved in early work perceiving in new ways significantly displaced. The er, all embracing system is often referred to as Mind, From this broad array of sources, Ryan’s work repre- with the video medium. He saw early on its potentially hopes of TV have largely turned sour, with the galaxy of and the systems in relation to Mind are considered sents a notable journey through some of an unusually transformative uses – its feedback capacity – to bring commercial stations Americanising and Disneyfying “Units of Mind”.Bateson is recognised as one of the key diverse terrain of the intellectual landscape of the last self-awareness to the video’d subject, where anyone can the horizon, also dissipating the expectations of what figures in the development of a holistic cybernetics. He thirty years. take in their own outside. Many of the essays detail a could have been realised. has stated that he believed cybernetics was the biggest The diversity of projects Ryan outlines is related particular part of these transformative uses, and elabo- Paul Ryan is an American artist, primarily a video- bite out of the tree of knowledge to come along for a through his recently published book “Video Mind, rations upon them. As you continue through the essays grapher, who was in at the beginning of experimental long time. His major work, “Steps Towards an Ecology Earth Mind”. The title consciously echoes the Zen they map out the direction and development of his videos and their extended use by the outer counter-cul- of Mind” was published in 1972 whilst McCulloch’s Buddhist, Suzuki Roshi’s “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”. thought over the years. At the centre is the Batesonian ture. Since the late sixties he has been involved in a “Embodiments of Mind” had already appeared in 1965. Through the technology of video, what he calls a begin- approach to Peirce. Peirce believed the basis of knowl- unique artististic and philosophical project, at once Since ‘72 Ryan began synthesizing these concepts of ner’s or “video” mind can be realised which enables the edge required “a new kind of formal logic, a logic which completely practical, yet with a sophisticated theoreti- thinking in circuits of cybernetics, with the work of the human mind to reconnect with the “Mind” of the would be the basis of a philosophical system”. He cal basis, to develop the possible uses of video for what leading American turn of the century semiotician, Living Earth. In developing a way of reconnecting to thought philosophy was close to exhaustion. The origin could be described as relational ends, and ultimately he Charles Peirce. Where the semiotician thinks in signs the web of life of eco-systems the perceptual awareness and cause of this exhaustion he thought was its adher- believes, the survival of the living planet. He views Ryans thinking moved towards thinking in both cir- of this web of life can be shared with anyone prepared ence to Aristotle’s logic of classes. In place Peirce video as an evolutionary tool. The range of strategies cuits and signs. Although the results Ryan offers us is a to watch the video monitors. For Ryan, video therefore believed what was needed was a logic of relationships which he has developed out of this project are poten- synthesis, it is also an indication of the richness of is a technology of perceptual awareness. Ryan suggests which would provide the basic architecture “with tially far reaching and possibly transforming the philo- imagination of Bateson’s influence, and a continuing of that this aware way of seeing among diverse groups of which to build a new richer understanding of living”. sophical ground on which he situates himself. In turn, the fragmented if quiet Post-Batesonian tradition of peoples constitutes a way to make meaning around Peirce never found this new relational logic, but Ryan, this opens up significant developments both within the which Ryan is part, it could be said. Whilst much of what is seen. As such, Ryan argues, it is a series of steps rather startlingly believes he has arrived at what Peirce technologies he uses and interacts with – video, and to cybernetics has become a hard technocratic science towards the beginning of a mature use of video. was after. Ryan’s Peircian vision is thus grounded in his a lesser extent, television and computers, and also in the ranging from ecology to AI, there is another parallel The book is an ensemble of essays which catalogues development of this logic of relations. In a visual repre- field of personal interactions and relationships. soft cybernetic stream which continues as a source of his journey through video from the late sixties to the sentation, Ryan’s cybernetic adaption of the Peircian Ryan, once a teenage Catholic monk, originally rich if quiet influence. Ryan is involved in this stream. present day. They comprise 24 years work from 1968 to philosophical system is sculpted around a non- studied with Marshall McLuhan in 1968. Partly in place Ryan has also attempted to apply his synthesis to 1992, envisioning how video, and to a lesser extent, tele- Euclidean, non-orientable topological form called by of the Vietnam draft he immersed himself in the edu- aspects of Rene Thom’s catastrophe theory, the nota- vision, can be used systemically in the service of devel- Ryan a relational circuit and shaped like a kleinform, cational possibilities of video as an alternative to print tional systems of aesthetician Nelson Goodman, and oping this shared perceptual apprehension of the eco- (see figure). This form is the representational key to 46 www.fourthdoor.co.uk www.fourthdoor.co.uk 47 WORDWORKS 1 WORDWORKS 1 Ryan’s energies, it solves for him a logic of relations and class of chair is not a chair, number is not a quantity presented a shared and shareable perception of the web guise of smaller educational projects and imagineering connects the logic with Peirce’s semiotic categories of and the name is not the thing named”, Ryans logic of of ecosystems within a bioregion. proposals. These proposals, although for the most part being. Peirce’s categories of being are designated first- relationships is based not on naming and classifying This is the function of the Earthscore Notation not existing in the real world, expand Ryan’s envision- ness, secondness, and thirdness. but on a “positional differentiation”, which makes it System. It is comprised of five elements, which require ing of them to form parallel possible futures, and add A straightforward way of approaching the relational hetararchical and less susceptible to the authoritarian a somewhat extended examination, much of which is to the diversity of how to imagine the uses of technolo- logic Ryan seeks is to apprehend the difference between political consequences for which the orthodox and best stated in Ryan’s own words. I explore with the aid gy.Video is therefore perceived as a remarkable tool for transitive and intransitive relationships. For instance, heirarchical Batesonian logic of classes has been criti- of Ryan’s examples the five point notational system in viewing ourselves, and entering into relationships envisage three interacting individuals. The usual pattern cised. greater depth below in the encased section. It is quite beyond the dyadic, binary realm which is so much the is for two of the parties to combine against the third so Thus, for Ryan, the possibility of a new post- technical and I found it difficult grasping Ryan’s norm as to be unconscious. There are other careful that “one dyadic relationship (AB ) is strengthened and Peircian triadic logic of relationships is opened up. Peircian semiotics so whether you involve yourself in it essays which diverge from this, most notably, “Jesus the other two (BC and AC) are weakened”. By contrast Ryan employs the relational logic in a number of sce- or leave it be, is up to you.
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