Reviving the Calico of Louis Leakey, Part 1

BUSINESSBUSINESS NAMENAME BUSINESSBUSINESS NAMENAME Pleistocene coalition news VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1 J7 A7 N7 U7 A7 R7 Y7 -7 F7 E7 B7 R7 U7 A7 R7 Y7 7 27 07 17 3 Inside - Challenging the tenets of mainstream scientific a g e n d a s - QUICK THUMBNAIL LINKS P A G E 2 Designed by Nature: Symbols & Myth Maggie Macnab Losing two of Calico Watch— Leakey Calico talk—new our best science watched transcription & audio P A G E 3 Two greats depart: David McIntyre and Sam L Val- Landiham Editors Reminiscences and Forbidden art— Book review, Michael layers at Calico politicized archaeology Cremo’s science & religion P A G E 4 Calico Watch Virginia Steen-McIntyre Designed by nature: Symbols & myth By Maggie Macnab the infinite, and how most look to nature to create my P A G E 5 human-designed systems are work as a matter of practical- Graphic designer, design structured. Nature, on the ity as well as aesthetics. Louis Leakey Calico theorist, author, lecturer other hand, is Symbols en- talk remastered completely gage us deeply John Feliks intercon- as expressions My primary design back- nected within of the organic ground is as a symbolic itself, and as principles and logo designer, which I such has infi- forms that all P A G E 8 have professionally been nite and eter- of life embod- creating for over 30 years. A lifelong personal nal trails into ies. Nature is My interest in symbols and history at Calico all things… common to myth, however, go back as most particu- everyone, and Tom Baldwin far as I can remember. I be- larly, those when it is used lieve this is a natural human things that symbolically in inclination because symbols appear super- Fig. 1. Micro to macro, a handful of visual lan- and myth lead us into under- P A G E 1 0 ficially unre- patterns construct everything in guage, the standing the larger whole of the universe. The weaving pattern lated. When- chance of cre- Forbidden art and nature around us intuitively, of the helix combines two opposites ever you see ating a rela- politicized archae- comprehensively and truth- in cooperation. Left: the basis of an aha! in a tionship with ology fully. In effect, it sets our organic life (DNA molecule closeup; design, or Wikimedia-commons), Right: Dou- the audience is minds aside (no easy task!) Vesna Tenodi hear it in a ble Helix Nebula at the center of the significantly and allows us to experience punch line of Milky Way galaxy: NASA (2006). elevated be- our senses rather than to a joke, those cause it mir- [simply] think about them. P A G E 1 6 invisible connections have rors the relationships within Necessarily, this cannot be been made apparent. Your and around us. Nature even broken down with complete mind is getting it after being embeds symbols that mirror BOOK REVIEW success into bits—or as hu- informed symbolically and universal processes directly in My Science, My man language comprised of experientially. our DNA in the form of the Religion by Mi- words. Bits don’t—never have double helix (Fig. 1). This and never will—explain chael Cremo Because symbols are derived particular structure is directly wholes. But this is how our Richard Dullum from nature they are the first referencing the penetrating minds are hardwired to grasp language of all humans, and I > Cont. on page 2 VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1 P A G E 2 Designed by nature (cont.) motion necessary to funnel a made up of the very same dreds of thousands of genetic blueprint into the fundamental formulas. We years—and are far older next generation, while simul- know a fit when we experi- than civilization itself. But taneously acknowledging its ence it. because three-dimensional origin of two opposites com- space is continually morph- bined in mutual cooperation Your intuition knows that a ing, time erases nearly all to create a third, new possi- circle is the shape of whole- traces. From what has been “Humans bility with optimal potential ness or com- found to date have survived for survival. pletion (there is evi- and (planets, dence of com- Art or design that eggs, cells, prolif- plex symbolic incorporates natural molecules, behavior going erated symbolism reso- seasonal back as far as by nates intuitively well cycles); that 200,000 to reading before the intellect waves oscil- 500,000 “makes sense” of it. late to bal- the uni- years!), we Written language is ance ex- know that our versal processed intellectu- tremes predecessors princi- ally first, before it is (atoms and recognized the ples understood as im- galaxies do value of the ages or emotions. this, too); and information The author. Photo by Without a doubt, that the contained in forms of Liz Lopez. designs that appeal branch pat- natural pat- nature to me have to do tern (tree terns and as a common with my preference for visual branches, forms all information, which you may veins, light- symbolic lan- around us share. But it is more univer- ning or the (See Fig. 4 on guage.” sal than that. network of the following nerves that page). Any piece of art or design drive impulses that embeds a universal throughout Patterns, principle is your body) shapes and connected to moves life’s Fig. 3. Top: The design of this processes of something energy from Acheulian age flint handaxe the natural (from Hoxne in Suffolk, Eng- more, some- one place to world cue our land, c. 350,000 years old, thing real, another; and inspiration and something we and the first handaxe ever that mirrored published in archaeology, John understanding just know … halves contain Frere, 1800) displays re- by revealing you naturally bilateral sym- flected, bilateral or mirror the eternal process visual metry—the symmetry. This type of sym- baseline of information basic struc- metry is intuitively familiar to existence. You us since it is the structural intuitively tural form of simply can’t form of most animal life in the before intel- almost all stop noticing lectually un- world. Symmetry provides higher ani- structural containment. Re- nature’s proc- derstanding it, mals, includ- flected symmetry in particular esses in your Fig. 2. Bilateral symmetry is the dominant so let’s begin ing humans provides balance that makes peripheral symmetry in all higher life forms; it is a com- with image (Fig. 2 ). for efficient movement vision. As con- pelling and intuitively recognizable principle. and intuition through physical space possi- Human anatomy image: Visual Language ; stants of or- first. When a uni- ble. Bottom: A bilaterally- Snake skeleton image: Srdjan Draskovic. ganic struc- symmetric logo designed by the versal princi- ture, they pre- ple becomes a author featuring several sym- SYMBOL-SPEAK bols recognizable from nature. sent an inter- primary ingre- esting para- Humans have survived and dient in a dox: the workings of nature proliferated by reading the piece of communication, be it are typically dismissed by universal principles and literal or visual, something our sped-up intellect as be- forms of nature as a com- tells us to take note. Human ing commonplace, but are mon symbolic language, no designs that do this resemble simultaneously recognized matter when or where they independent, self-animated by the senses as being es- have lived. The principles “life” by presenting the very sential and eternal. that constitute an effective same qualities ( Fig. 3a & b ). design, be it architectural, Nature’s process dictates environmental, cultural, ar- Symbols predate written effective human design. Lan- tistic or graphic, resonate to language by at least tens of thousands—perhaps hun- your depths because you are > Cont. on page 3 PLEISTOCENE COALITION NEWS VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1 P A G E 3 Designed by nature (cont.) guage barriers preclude this and functioning design—be it distance ourselves from it for ability to communicate uni- manmade or natural—balance very long. When you see a versally and immediately. reigns supreme. Modern cul- piece of design that simply “Visuals are im- Visuals are immediate be- ture could learn from this: the makes you feel good, what cause they connect as a ge- opposite sides of your brain you’re really seeing is an ex- mediate be- stalt, and they communicate are not meant to contradict pression of nature flowing in cause each other and place. It feels right because the they entangle without common denominators that connect resolution. Being underscore all of life are the creative is not of truest part of the human experi- as a ge- more or less value ence. It’s the most compelling stalt, than being stra- reason there is. Designs that and tegic. They are resonate with your senses are they meant to work living loops, little visual ecosys- together. You tems that stand independently commu- can expand this on their own while being con- nicate thought into the nected into the whole, just as in both greater world. each of us is designed to do. Divisive human univer- systems are de- sal and signed with imbal- MAGGIE M ACNAB is an interna- person- ance in mind and tional award-winning graphic Fig. 4. This six-meter-long python, discovered in Africa in 2006, fundamentally designer, author and educator ally is embellished with more than 300 manmade “scales” and is contradict the with a career spanning several relevant approximately 70,000 years old. Humans have been using their decades. She teaches at Santa natural world ways.” brains symbolically since “time out of mind.” Image: Sheila Fe University of Art and Design, Dawn Coulson.

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