leonardo reviews
editor-in-chief Michael Punt associate editors Hannah Drayson, Dene Grigar, Jane Hutchinson A full selection of reviews is published monthly on the Leonardo website:
b o o k s of these regions as untouched by modernism) and “neoliberalism,” the certain excesses of urban and mod- former characterized by the disman- For Folk’s Sake: Art and ern civilization, but what do these tling of classic hierarchies, the latter Economy in Twentieth- superficial observations on the art by the increasing privatization of the Century Nova Scotia production and allegedly authentic public domain. In light of this double by Erin Morton. McGill/Queen’s taste of the common people actu- theoretical framework, economical University Press, Montréal, Quebec, 2016. ally mean? The challenging study by on the one hand, historical on the 424 pp., illus. Trade; paper. ISBN: 978- Erin Morton, professor of history at other hand, Morton advances—and 0773548114; ISBN: 978-0773548121. the University of New Brunswick, brilliantly illustrates—her main thesis not only shows how deceiving these that the emergence of folk art in Nova Reviewed by Jan Baetens. Email:
©2018 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 313–324, 2018 313
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 influential appearance of cultural impossibility to accept that art, be it entrepreneurs in the area, and finally the special type of art that is folk art, the crisis of modern art in the rest can exist just “for art’s sake”—all these of Canada and the Western world, questions are carefully discussed in which not only made room for folk this passionately committed book art as well as the production of “con- that deserves a wide readership. temporary” folk art, explicitly made to cater to new audiences belonging A Mind at Play: How to completely different worlds, but Claude Shannon Invented made the “folk art turn” almost a the Information Age necessity, at least from a commercial by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman. Simon and economic point of view. The close & Schuster, New York, 2017. 384 pp., illus. reading of all these aspects offers a Trade. ISBN: 1476766681; 978-1476766683. complex yet always very cautious Reviewed by Amy Ione, and nuanced approach to the work the Diatrope Institute. of mainly woodcarvings and paint- Email:
314 Leonardo Reviews
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 in contemporary life. Both probed component of information, cryptol- The most refreshing element of machine intelligence, feedback ogy turns in a quite different direc- the book is that the authors do not and programming commands and tion, grappling with how to conceal rely on boilerplate tropes. The Shan- cryptology. The authors tell us that, meaningful information within a non we meet appears fresh rather according to Shannon, much was transmission. Despite their opposite than packaged. The explanations are also left unsaid between them. He did goals, they are closely connected. It is clear and because the text does not discuss his notions about Information intriguing to think that Shannon was talk down to the reader it is easy to Theory with Turing, but they needed able to bridge these two areas through develop a dialogue with it. One of the to avoid cryptography because of recognizing their similarities. In most intriguing facets of the work is security concerns. other words, he saw that language is how the authors puzzled out Shan- Shannon published his path-break- a symbol system or a code, enabling non himself. Despite their conclusion ing two-part article, “A Mathematical him to work with information as an that he played throughout his life, I Theory of Communication,” “the engineering problem. If Information in turn was puzzled at times by the Magna Carta of the Information Age,” Theory offers a universally applicable authors’ tendency to elevate engineer- in 1948, in the Bell Labs journal, at model that removes meaning from ing and applications-based creativity, the age of 32 [1]. In it he showed that the problem space, cryptology, by even as they clearly liked the playful no matter the source, the sender, the contrast, works with communication nature of his whimsical creations. recipient, or the meaning, informa- codes invested with meaning. Noise This wasn’t a flaw so much as a tion could be efficiently represented comes into play for both, but because reminder that I have spent my life by a sequence of bits—information’s signals intelligence is as much about searching for conjunctions between fundamental unit and a term Shan- code-making as it is about code- art and science, and this perhaps non introduced in the paper as an breaking, it is invested in separating gives me a different sense of the ter- abbreviation for “binary digits.” (One the meaning from the “noise” for rain. Indeed, it initially seemed that bit is the amount of information some and not others. the authors were elevating science that results from a choice between At Bell Labs Shannon also worked over art due to the use of phrases like two options.) Key here is that Shan- on a number of projects that antici- “turning art into science would be the non did not devise a theory about pate current work in artificial intelli- hallmark of Shannon’s career” (p. 41) the meaning of communications but gence. His maze-solving mouse was a and “In banishing art and ambiguity, about the optimal means of quantify- wonderful example. It has a mechani- in finding the ways in which human ing the transmission of information cal brain programmed both to solve artifacts merely stood for mathemat- and a new approach to the problem the problems the maze posed by trial ics” (p. 46). As I read, it became more of noisy channels. In other words, and error and then to remember the apparent that they were asking if we Shannon’s theory is not about what solutions once solved. A short Bell can translate qualities of Shannon’s we communicate but rather about the Labs film of Shannon with the mouse playfulness and genius—a word they transmission of information regard- [2] is worth viewing, particularly in use quite a bit that I tend to dis- less of what it contains. light of how the Lab used it to craft like—into our lives generally. All in Shannon began to grapple with an infomercial. Shannon also worked all, Shannon offered them a means the noise problem when the com- with computerized chess program- to pose good questions and to think munication debate centered on the ming, still a mainstay in artificial about what makes creative thinkers movement of electricity, and com- intelligence investigation and grist for more than technicians. munication per se was seen as a war the debates about the degree to which At the end, the authors sum up against noise. Building on nineteenth- computational games and computers Shannon as a man who “tackled century experimentation in this area can fully simulate our humanness. some of the most significant scientific and the work of Bell Labs researchers In 1956 Shannon left his position questions of his era and worked at (e.g. Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hart- at Bell Labs for a professorship at the boundaries of math, computer ley), he reconfigured the problem. MIT. He liked teaching, although he science, and engineering” (p. 277). His new unit of measurement, the bit, remained an outlier there much as he Then they ask if the push for STEM added a form for quantification that had been within the Bell Labs culture. studies allows for the kind of innova- was capable of accommodating the Many of his projects of this period, tive, creative thinking that defined his idea that information is stochastic. “It particularly the whimsical ones, are life. They also note that “Shannon’s is neither fully unpredictable nor fully along the lines of his tinkering work admirers are just as quick to compare determined.” while at Bell Labs. These kinds of him to M.C. Escher or Lewis Carroll As I read, I admittedly began to products have correlates within the as they are to put him in the company think that Shannon’s work with the ArtScience genre. Indeed, his home, of Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton. communication of information was Entropy House, served as in-house He turned arid and technical sciences sometimes oddly paradoxical in laboratory and office and contained into vast and captivating puzzles, the terms of human experience. If Infor- an all-purpose “toy room” to store solving of which was play of the adult mation Theory removes the semantic and display his gadgets. kind” (pp. 278–279).
Leonardo Reviews 315
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 There is a lot to unpack here in innumerable ideas in the abstract tualize Shannon’s contributions. terms of STEM, the comparisons they or perhaps a strategy to normalize Havelock’s research stemmed from make and problem-solving. First, I a particular brand of art-making an interest in exploring why Plato’s liked the comparison with Lewis Car- within the academy. While programs philosophy largely rejected poetry. roll, who was a mathematician pro- that encourage cross-disciplinary As he examined the cultural shift fessionally and had a fascination for approaches are a good thing, and from the dominant oral tradition that math puzzles throughout his life [3]. while I support finding funding preceded Plato to one that elevated Shannon’s first publication as a young streams for projects in which artists/ written communication, Havelock student mirrored this fascination. It designers and scientists/engineers col- saw the move from an oral to a liter- was a solution to a math puzzle that laborate, I’m not convinced that creat- ate form as a technological shift. This was published in The American Math- ing institutional silos that foster these earlier technological communication ematical Monthly. Since Shannon was projects will in turn serve as breeding shift, like Information Theory, altered “a born tinkerer” and gravitated to grounds for creativity. They may only human communication behavior- making things throughout his life, I normalize a particular approach to ally. Havelock explains that within admittedly see him more in terms of cross-disciplinary problem-solving. a nonliterate, oral culture, stability the inventive, cross-disciplinary and Whether normalization would aid requires the transmission of experi- hands-on Leonardo da Vinci than of STEM areas or even foster creativity is ence through memorization or mne- someone like M.C. Escher, who, while too complex a topic for a short review. monic learning. Thus one function of a creative thinker, worked within a Shannon’s life on its own terms early oral poetry was to use patterns more limited framework. Not only shows that the relationships between and repetition to educate citizens was Leonardo an engineer and a the technical (normalized) and play- by transmitting moral and technical problem-solver, like Shannon he ful (creative) approaches are hard to information in easily remembered wrote code of a sort, for it is said pin down. Indeed, A Mind at Play forms. This form of coding was one that his mirror-writing was adopted brings to mind that throughout his- of Plato’s concerns because its repeti- to hide his scientific ideas from the tory we find debates among scientists, tive patterning encouraged a form of Church, to which such ideas were artists and humanists asking how and rote learning and an almost hypnotic blasphemy. Of course, Shannon wor- why excellent technicians differ from response as listeners came to emo- shipped Thomas Edison, a distant insightful, creative thinkers. STEM’s tionally identify with the repetitive relative, and his legacy also comes to entry into our thinking about this is content and images within the nar- mind here. an iteration of these kinds of debates. rative. Plato thus urged a reasonable Second, and by extension, I am Rita Colwell, then the Director of the and rational approach to educating somewhat uneasy with the idea that NSF, proposed the approach in the the populace so that people did not Shannon’s contributions are consid- 1980s in response to how engineer- succumb to emotional inputs. The ered science, since I see the thrust of ing and technology had changed our code or symbols of a written tech- his life more in terms of engineering world. Then and now, the acronym is nology work well with rational and and applications, another reason he typically used in terms of educational logical ideas but have some difficulty seems more in the Thomas Edison policy and curriculum development. in accommodating other ways of and Leonardo mold. Perhaps the The prevailing idea contained within knowing, for example, emotional dominance of STEM these days has it is that a solid foundation in science, intelligence. Or, to oversimplify, superseded debates about whether technology, math and engineering is several threads within A Mind at engineering is a science, and its cor- good for students and good for the Play brought to mind that the logic relate, is computer science a science? community, for we can build a better, of engineering and mathemati- These debates, to my mind, are com- more prosperous future when we give cal solutions falls into the kind of parable to those asking if design is students the knowledge and skills to paradigm that is built upon a logical art, and so forth. succeed in our highly complex global foundation. Shannon’s conceptualiza- This brings me to a third point: world. The question that inevitably tion of Information Theory does not, What is STEM and does Claude comes up is how to reconcile the nor is it intended to, accommodate Shannon’s life offer a good entry tension between skills that require the complexity of what humans point for analyzing its strengths and some measure of rote learning and communicate. It may have bred our limitations? I found the book’s closing technical competency with the need digital age but as challenges like fake comments about STEM and creativity to cultivate creative thinking. news and encryption breakdowns particularly evocative in light of how As a historian, I perhaps should not remind us, there are many ways to disappointing I’ve found the push for be surprised that my mind turned to use our tools. STEAM. While some STEAM advo- an even earlier iteration of this debate Unfortunately, a short review can- cates see adding a playful element as I read. Eric Havelock’s classic not detail all of the amazing details to STEM as a worthwhile goal, the Preface to Plato [4] is the work that the book includes. Readers will have STEM to STEAM push now seems seemed most apropos as I searched to find these on their own. One, for more like a slogan that conflates for an analog to help me concep- example, is that Shannon landed at
316 Leonardo Reviews
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 Bell Labs a few times before he was 1993. Even as his body degraded, he /review/2017/05/review-of-lewis finally hired full-time as a research continued tinkering. Ultimately he -carroll-society-of-north-america -spring-meeting>. mathematician there. Indeed, the lab’s lost his personal communications records omit the fact that Shannon bandwidth entirely before he died in 4 Havelock, Eric. 1982. Preface to Plato: Belknap Press of Harvard University was a summer intern there in 1937. 2001. His dementia meant that he was Press. Another detail that interested me not able to see the digital revolution was that he did a PhD in genetics, advance during his waning years, largely prodded toward this topic by characterized by the launch of the From Light to Dark: Daylight, Vannevar Bush. As it turned out, his Internet and other communication Illumination, and Gloom passion was not in that area. Suffice tools far beyond what twentieth- by Tim Edensor. University of Minnesota it to say that in the end, the richness century minds conceptualized. Even Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2017. 248 pp., of Shannon’s accomplishments show so, as books like The Mind at Play illus. Trade, paper. ISBN: 978-0816694426; how difficult it is to come up with remind us, Shannon’s signal lives on ISBN: 978-0816694433. any one-size-fits-all characteriza- in what he added to our communal Reviewed by Jan Baetens. Email: tion of our humanness. While he communications repository. He was Leonardo Reviews 317 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 parameter of our visual environment Edensor’s book gives a welcome and between light and power, and the and to disclose the multilayeredness very useful overview of what one increasing dissatisfaction with of light as process—a process that might call “light studies.” The author the vanishing of dark. The author human and other actors both shape brings together important material is at his best when he tackles certain and are shaped by. The focus is on from a variegated set of disciplines, issues from a more concrete and the urban landscape, yet not in an and his discussion of this material politically situated perspective, as exclusive manner, since the progress is always clear and well balanced. It in the sections where he discusses of artificial light has also penetrated comes therefore as a big surprise that the class structure of our reactions nonurban areas. This urban landscape throughout the whole book Eden- to light and the judgments of good is then studied in a global way, with sor emphasizes the fact that light is a and bad taste that go along. These examples borrowed from very differ- neglected phenomenon in our (schol- analyses are excellent, and it makes ent contexts, geographically as well as arly) experience of the real. This may the reader regret that Edensor has chronologically. Moreover, the book be the case in the author’s own field not always opted for this more direct contains very illuminating and poetic (urban geography, tourism studies), and “local” approach. notes on natural landscapes as well— but the claim is difficult to maintain a logical choice for an author who in the broader field of the humanities, Words on Screen is a specialist in human geography where light has for many years been a by Michel Chion; translated by Claudia and tourism. The chosen methodol- central concern of many researchers. Gorbman. Columbia University Press, ogy is a mix of literature study and I am thinking for instance of semiot- New York, NY, 2017. 272 pp., Paper. ethnographical fieldwork based on ics (the new French school of post- ISBN: 978-0231174992. the author’s personal notebooks and Greimassian semiotics has produced Reviewed by Will Luers, The Creative personal research biography on the wonderful studies on the importance Media & Digital Culture Program, one hand and an extensive litera- of light for the reading of the land- Washington State University Vancou- ture study on the other hand. The scape; these “thymic” analyses, which ver. Email: 318 Leonardo Reviews Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 In some successful experiments, text The Edge of Objectivity: exchanges between characters hover An Essay in the History of over the cinema space like overlays, Scientific Ideas but they are also point-of-view shots by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Princeton of what the characters are reading University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, and writing, silently, as they stare 2017 (1st edition 1960) 600 pp. Paper. at their devices and type with their ISBN: 978-0691172521. thumbs. Reviewed by Enzo Ferrara, The final part, Writing in Film Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Space, gets to the heart of Chion’s Metrologica (INRIM) and Istituto project: How do two-dimensional di Ricerche Interdisciplinari sulla text spaces integrate into three- Sostenibilità (IRIS), Torino, Italy. dimensional cinema spaces? Writing Email: Leonardo Reviews 319 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 and its chronicle as a sequence of rational attitudes but rather for its Atomism [is] the subsistence of discoveries not always correlated by description of a uniformitarian nature reality in ultimate particles whose unifying themes. Otherwise, we can and uncritical identification of kinds motions the laws describe. . . . And see science as knowledge evolving by of models presupposed by fundamen- it must be admitted that the atom comparison of experimental practices tal science. Gillispie presents science . . . was a minute ball bearing in to theoretical hypotheses made by as a collective and progressively dynamics, a carrier for valence in scientists through generalizations of cumulative construction. For exam- chemistry, an infinitesimal con- fundamental ideas. The latter was the ple, the numerical representation of cretization of energy in electricity, side chosen by Gillispie. His subtitle, natural phenomena, which originated a population of the unobservable An Essay in the History of Scientific in the separation of mind and mat- in statistical mechanics of gases, Ideas, represents the author’s inten- ter conceived by Descartes, found in and everywhere the postulation as tion to provide a selected yet huge the Cartesian method a great use for an image of reality (p. 499). corpus of information on mankind’s physics, marrying it to algebra and efforts to unravel Nature’s secrets. geometry, eventually giving place to Unfortunately, the rather naïve Although very different in their pur- the coordinate system in daily use mechanism that facilitated the objec- poses, Alexandre Koyré’s études and among all branches of science. tive view through atomistic para- Arthur Koestler’s sketches on the Science has become increasingly digms in mechanics and chemistry history of science are valued as refer- objective in all its disciplines—the in the seventeenth century became ences in the final chapter, “Biblio- author claims—the process having a hindrance to the later systematic graphical Essay.” Here Gillispie claims begun in physics with kinematics, physical theories that included the he intended to narrate the structure of developed then through chemistry wave-particle dualism and electro- the history of classical science. and biology to return ultimately to magnetic forces in empty space. Fur- the physics of the nineteenth cen- thermore, through the atomistic view This book is no attempt to recount tury—though the complexity of Gillispie supported the idea of similar in summary the whole history of quantum mechanics makes it difficult situations recurring in the history of science from Galileo to Maxwell to maintain an objective and unifor- science, whose difficulties have been and Mendel. Instead, its purpose mitarian view of nature. resolved by strategical processes of is to set out in narrative form what This path demarcation could be objectification. Major trouble occurs I take to be the structure of classi- satisfactory if the notion of objectiv- when this ambiguous criterion of cal science. This I find in the route ity is made clear. Usually, in science, science declines as intellectual virtue which the advancing edge of ob- to objectify is to quantify through and accordingly scientists are praised jectivity has in fact taken through measurements, and one would or blamed. the study of nature from one expect such terms as “quantification,” On the struggle to promote objec- science to another! (p. 521) “consensus” or “reproducibility” tivity as an advanced value in succes- as pertaining to scientific affairs. sive sciences, Gillispie annotated: The history of science, in the view “When you can measure what you of Gillispie, reflects thus the advance- are speaking about, and express it The historian of science may ments of what he calls “objectivity,” in numbers, you know something therefore be pardoned for won- which is a concept more of philoso- about it,” Lord Kelvin wrote (Popular dering what might have been the phy than science. Anyhow, although Lectures, 1883); “when you cannot influence on biology had these many important men and ideas are express it in numbers, your knowl- scientists [Nägeli and Weismann] not included, the volume offers an edge is of a meager and unsatisfactory known the history of science, and organic whole, concentrating on the kind.” This is a questionable affirma- whether they might then have most brilliant scientific minds of all tion, as not everything that can be noticed the interest of Mendel’s times. Galileo, Kepler, Descartes and counted counts, and not everything work? Suppose they had thought Newton are in the earlier part, fol- that counts can be counted. At least, to compare the simple whole lowed after the Enlightenment by Kelvin provided a readily applicable numbers of his ratios to Dalton’s, Lavoisier, Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin understanding of objectivity. Unfor- by which the chemical revolution and Mendel; then Faraday, Maxwell tunately, Gillispie was not so clear was reduced to numerical terms. and Einstein. Their major develop- and augmented confusion, setting Suppose they had known of the ments are recounted, assisted by out a bias in favor of atomistic theo- relationship of the corpuscular quotations that convey the spirit of ries—from Democritus to Dalton and philosophy of the seventeenth scientific work in different ages. Lavoisier—as superior paradigms century to the Newtonian syn- Since the text first appeared, its supporting objectivity in science. thesis. Might they not have saved value for the history of science has Atomism, according to him, is a pre- themselves much unprofitable rea- been unquestionable. Quarrels arose condition of objective science and a soning, and advanced the prog- on the meaning of objectivity, not standard mode of inference from the ress of their science by several for its equivalence to positive or even visible to the invisible. decades? (p. 335) 320 Leonardo Reviews Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 This approach works for a large itself at least—but the idea that the part of earlier scientific develop- path paved by scientists can be dealt ments: Galileo is more objective than with as a history of glory towards the Aristotle and Newton than Galileo; “true” knowledge is difficult to share. and Newton, dominant figure of the Most people—among them was Lev early chapters, certainly believed Nikolàevič Tolstoy, see Modern Sci- and was successful in assessing that ence (1898)—would disagree that the the forces of nature are mathemati- grandeur of science, although objec- cally expressible. Francis Bacon is tive, can tell us how to live or justify appreciated for “application of the about our place on the Earth. More inductive method, creation of a uni- convenient is to assume that science versal natural history, and the public advancements blend with human organization of science” (p. 78), but history along a difficult path of suc- disdained for the utilitarian view of cesses and disillusions, glory and science. The increasing objectivity infamy. Yet, Gillispie deserves thanks of the Enlightenment is reflected in for canvassing curiosity and skepti- usually firmly into opinion, not fact. the passage from the elegant French cism on scientific virtues from the When describing curves and surfaces discourse of philosophes to the British undergraduates of “Humanities 304” precisely, one is in mathematical factual accomplishments of scientists, at Princeton, 1956–1958. He wrote a fact, not opinion. The author plays accompanied by the key change of superb book on the history of science, it safe in that the examples he cites science language. But Newton was whose paradigms, whatever their certainly are beautiful, and the book as well aware that the accountable interpretation, are but cruel ones: can be simply seen as fine art, words phenomena of nature are unknow- In all disciplines they cut away any largely unread. But that would be a able in terms of ultimate causation, human-centered attitudes to reality, pity. Following a general introduc- and Bacon, who did not make any while revealing the amoral even if tory chapter, the next five chapters scientific discoveries, was the first assessable and often uncomfortable are grounded by direct comparison to foresee that eventually science outlines of the natural world—which between his examples and the five would become a business of everyday is the highly respectable and central so-called catastrophic folds (the fold, recognition of knowledge as a way message of the book. the cusp, the swallowtail, the butterfly of power, and not much else. Fur- and the wigwam). These will certainly thermore, if objectivity lies in math- References interest those, like this reviewer, who ematics, Lavoisier is a failure, as is are mathematical or scientific. I am Darwin’s actual objectification of biol- 1 Lucius Annaeus Seneca, “Sacred mysteries less sure they will captivate the fine cannot be understood at once,” Naturales ogy—it is amazing that On the Origin Quaestiones (VII, 30.6). artist, though; do they care about such of the Species, the most important classifications? Maybe they should. book of science ever, does not contain The book then develops a wider remit a single equation. The Seduction of Curves: and finds mathematically relevant When the emphasis is on the The Lines of Beauty That descriptions of surfaces and curves dawn of theoretical physics, e.g. Connect Mathematics, also described precisely through the Maxwell, Boltzmann, Einstein, and Art, and the Nude physics of optics (reflections, rain- we learn that it is possible to equate by Allan McRobie; photography by Helena bows, gravitational lenses); then it is abstract and mathematic thought, Weightman. Princeton University Press, back to René Thom with stability and Gillispie is hard to follow. His book Princeton, NJ, 2017. 168 pp., illus. 179 col., the Russian sculptor Naum Gabo, 107 b/w. Trade. ISBN: 978-0691175331. also misses the unfolding knowledge whom Thom sadly never met. The of subatomic particles. “To carry the Reviewed by Phil Dyke. book finishes with summaries of the story of fields and particles beyond Email: Leonardo Reviews 321 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 production both in the illustrations often idiosyncratic interpretation a license to access certain informa- used and in the general elegance of of the history of the image does tion under certain conditions, which the book itself. It would grace the reflect his position of “third-culture” nobody actually knows, and which grandest of coffee tables and provide thinker). may change without any notice). the basis for interesting debates. The starting point ofPlain Text This claim of a crucial loss is made is however not a theoretical or by Tenen at two levels: that of the Plain Text: The Poetics philosophical one. It is instead the individual, whose life is increasingly of Computation existential as well as political fear surveilled and controlled by tools and by Dennis Tenen. Stanford University that our current use of technology, software one is no longer aware of, Press, Stanford, CA, 2017. 280 pp. which Tenen describes as passive and but also that of society, for the impli- Trade, paper. ISBN: 9781503601802; uncritical, has serious consequences cations of technological devices and ISBN: 978-1503602281. for fundamental human values such software have a tremendous impact Reviewed by Jan Baetens. Email: as freedom, communication, solidar- on the way we communicate and live 322 Leonardo Reviews Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 predigital as well as digital, deeply ous). Hence the critical rereading inform, determine and shape the way of Marshall McLuhan’s maxim “the we read and write, the basic assump- medium is the message,” which Tenen tion being that text is not just form + considers too deterministic and insuf- content but deeply rooted in technol- ficiently open to questions having to ogy that “formats” the medium and do with the use, or more precisely the that doing so not only determines the uses, which are always plural and dif- medium’s content but also the possi- ferent, of texts and mediums. bilities we have in using it in order to However, and this is the second think, read, write, exchange ideas and goal of the book, the perspective eventually build cultures and societies of Tenen’s deconstruction is never (given the size of the digital changes to debunk or criticize. All analyses in today’s societies, a major emphasis always tend to foreground the cul- is of course put on digitization, but tural, social and political a priori Plain Text is not narrowly concerned and implications of our “secure” and trations in both color and black & with digital technology alone). “comfortable” use of technology, as white lift the book above the ordinary. Plain Text investigates this broad shown for instance in the book’s final Perhaps this is also partly because the program in various ways. Logically, critique of the longing for “analogy” layout of the book is “based on the Dennis Tenen pays a lot of attention and “oneness” as a philosophical golden ratio. The proportion of 1:1.618 to the basic features and essential ideal, the dream of an ideal world defines all spacing and layout rules. characteristics of text and textuality, of transparency and direct contact, The typography is also set in this as an object as well as a process (read- deprived of any technological and ratio” (p. 224). There are 24 sections ing, writing, copying, circulating, digital pollution. Such a longing is (chapters), with such intriguing titles commenting, remediating, etc.), and nostalgic; it tends to exclude anything as “Two offset Fibonacci sequences”; his book has great analyses of issues and anyone alien while reinforcing “Proportions in music as a temporal such as turning the page, machine the power of technological formatting art”; “Grids and rules”; “The golden writing, or reading on screen. But we should ceaselessly question, not in ratio is basic vocabulary, an absolute in all chapters, Tenen’s aim in the order to reject it, but in order to try to must-have.” The chapters are followed analysis of these topics is not just to make a better use of it (and the reader by biographies of the contributors unpack what is hidden in technology, is invited to distinguish “better” from and a list of illustrations, but there is modern or not. With a very sharp eye “smarter,” which is one of the modern no index. for historical debates and the rela- metaphors that so successfully man- The quest to solve the mystery is tionships between older and newer age to blur the boundaries between frustrated by the amazing paradox forms of technology, on the one hand, comfort and surveillance). that the answer to the question of and a repeatedly expressed belief in the Divine Proportion being in fact the necessity of a formal and mate- Divine Golden Ingenious: universal, hence possibly Divine, is rialist investigation of meaning and The Golden Ratio as a emphatically Yes and No! The reason meaning-making, on the other hand, Theory of Everything? the book is delightful is because it is Plain Text pursues—and achieves— edited by O. Götze and L. Kugler. Hirmer a little like a conjuror’s performance. a double goal. Publishers, Munich, Germany, 2016. 224 One chapter proves the golden ratio First, Tenen manages to criticize pp., illus. ISBN: 978-3777426921. is divine; the next disproves it. As and deconstruct a certain number Reviewed by Rob Harle, Australia. an example, back in 1876, Fechner, a of stereotypes that block any serious Email: Leonardo Reviews 323 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021 beauty of the scientific method. The puzzled for some time to come. This One and Five Ideas: On Conceptual Art next example is more anecdotal but proliferation on the Internet has both and Conceptualism by Terry Smith; still illuminating: serious and humorous content. As an Image and Text in Conceptual Art: example: the very recent photos of Critical Operations in Context by Eve Admittedly, the significance of the American president Donald Trump’s Kalyva. Reviewed by Mike Leggett. golden ratio today does not lie in hairstyle likened to, or complying The Runaway Species: How Human real documentary evidence, but with, the golden ratio! Creativity Remakes the World by in the myth woven around this This book full of intriguing puzzles Anthony Brandt and David Eagle- history over the last 150 years. In (itself both serious and humorous) man. Reviewed by Amy Ione. common with those searching for will become an important resource the Holy Grail or the treasure of for future researchers and students of Textures of the Anthropocene: Grain the knights Templar, the golden this illusive mystery. Vapor Ray, edited by Katrin Klingan, ratio devotees weave together clues Ashkan Sepahvand, Christoph Rosol and allusions in history, math- and Bernd M. Scherer. Reviewed by l e o n a r d o Edith Doove. ematics and the natural science to r e v i e w s create grand images which primar- o n l i n e Traces of Vermeer by Jane Jelley. ily prompt amazement and claim Reviewed by David G. Stork. the existence of universal theory February 2018 of everything (p. 24). Film as Philosophy, edited by Arthur Balfour’s Ghosts: An Bernd Herzogenrath. Reviewed Further, adding weight to the myth, Edwardian Elite and the Riddle of by Will Luers. in type design the myth of the golden Cross-Correspondence Automatic ratio abounds; however, unbiased Writings by Trevor Hamilton. December 2017 investigation shows the “Trajan font Reviewed by Anna Walker. Gallery Sound by Caleb Kelly. (113 CE), the most famous and beauti- Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land Reviewed by John F. Barber. ful example of the capitalis monu- and Beyond by Shih-Ming Li Chang Live Wires: A History of Electronic mentalis, [allegedly] designed in and Lynne E. Frederiksen; foreword accordance with the golden ratio,” is Music by Daniel Warner. Reviewed by by Emily Wilcox. Reviewed by John F. Barber. in fact not based on the golden ratio Jonathan Zilberg. at all, “but instead the square, circle Museum and Archive on the Move: and triangle” (p. 99). Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Changing Cultural Institutions in the In the section “Workshop Report, Five Thousand Years of Urban Digital Era edited by Oliver Grau, Golden Pythagoras Trees: Frac- Media by Shannon Mattern. Wendy Coones and Viola Rühse. tals and Self-Similarity” by Daniel Reviewed by Jussi Parikka. Reviewed by Ana Peraica. Lordick (pp. 164–169), his conclud- I Got a Song: A History of the New- Patrick Tresset: Human Traits and the ing remarks indicate that the use of port Folk Festival by Rick Massimo. Art of Creative Machines edited by the golden ratio as a design tool is Reviewed by John F. Barber. Ryszard W. Kluszczyński. Reviewed arbitrary. “No matter how surprising by Rob Harle. it is to discover frequent examples of Mentored by a Madman: The William the golden ratio in nature, exclusively Burroughs Experiment by A.J. Lees. So Famous and So Gay: The Fabulous using the golden ratio as a design tool Reviewed by Jan Baetens. Potency of Truman Capote and Ger- clearly remains an arbitrary decision Modernist Informatics: Literature, trude Stein by Jeff Solomon. Reviewed and one that is rarely successful.” Information, and the State by James by Jan Baetens. The idea, or desperate hope, that Purdon. Reviewed by Boris Jardine. the golden ratio perhaps provides a William Blake and the Age of Aquar- November 2017 Theory of Everything is clearly not ius by Stephen F. Eisenman, with BioArt and Bacteria by Anna true. However, without doubt the contributions from Mark Crosby, Dumitriu. Reviewed by Charissa N. golden ratio may be observed often Elizabeth Ferrell, Jacob Henry Leve- Terranova. in nature. The Fibonacci series evi- ton, W.J.T. Mitchell, John P. Murphy. dent in the nautilus shell is just one ChildArt Magazine: Arts and Reviewed by Michael Mosher. example. So, we have what may be Mind—The Brain Science of Human described as a Divine Paradox. Evi- Experience, guest edited by Susan dence in nature of the Divine Propor- January 2018 Magsamen. Reviewed by Amy Ione. tion is astounding, and the cultural The Beauty of Numbers in Nature: Paranomia by Christoph Keller. “meme” replication myth, now grow- Mathematical Patterns and Principles Reviewed by Jan Baetens. ing out of all proportion (excuse pun) from the Natural World by Ian Stew- on the internet will keep researchers art. Reviewed by Phil Dyke. 324 Leonardo Reviews Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_r_01626 by guest on 03 October 2021