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: . that a better understanding of what was not something that happened doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01621 really happens when folk art comes spontaneously but was the result of a so much to the fore has much to complex set of converging historical, tell about art, culture and politics in political and institutional changes general. Morton’s book is indeed a that reshaped art and culture in the meticulous examination of the larger decade 1967–1977. These changes had framework and network that helps to do with the growing entanglement elucidate the many hidden aspects of culture and tourism, the sudden of the emergence of certain forms public intervention in the field of art, of popular culture as folk art. The the rapid modernization and technol- theoretical basis of Morton’s book ogization of all aspects of life in Nova relies on two pillars. First of all, the Scotia, the unforeseen but highly author’s approach to art and culture is strongly determined by the idea of presentism, that is, the fact that Reviews Panel: Fred Andersson, Jan Baetens, John F. Barber, Roy Behrens, K. Blassnigg, present-day perspectives inform and Catalin Brylla, Annick Bureaud, Chris Cobb, thus change the representation and Giovanna Costantini, Edith Doove, Hannah the interpretation of the past; this is Drayson, Phil Dyke, Ernest Edmonds, Amanda a kind of bias that prevents us from Egbe, Anthony Enns, Enzo Ferrara, Kathryn seeing the past as something that is Francis, George Gessert, Allan Graubard, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle, Craig Harris, Craig J. Visitors to Nova Scotia and New- radically different from the present. Hilton, Jane Hutchinson, Amy Ione, Richard foundland are immediately and inevi- In this case, the contact with folk Kade, Valérie Lamontagne, Mike Leggett, tably struck by the combination of art in today’s culture becomes part Will Luers, Kieran Lyons, Roger Malina, two cultural facts: the apparent invis- of a larger phenomenon of cultural Jacques Mandelbrojt, Florence Martellini, ibility of contemporary art, whatever nostalgia and its projection of mod- Elizabeth McCardell, Eduardo Miranda, Robert A. Mitchell, Michael Mosher, Sana this term may mean, and the no-less ern longing and desires on cultural Murrani, Frieder Nake, Maureen A. Nappi, visible ubiquity of kitsch, mostly in artifacts and practices that are mis- Claudy Opdenkamp, Jack Ox, Luisa Paraguai, the form of Sunday painters and pho- read and misunderstood. Second, Jussi Parikka, Ellen Pearlman, Ana Peraica, tographers, landscape paintings and Morton’s interpretation of folk art is Stephen Petersen, Michael Punt, Hannah Rogers, Lara Schrijver, Aparna Sharma, pictures for sale in hotel lobbies and systematically put in relationship with George K. Shortess, Brian Reffin Smith, countless little galleries around the the history of capitalism, in this case Yvonne Spielmann, Eugenia Stamboliev, tourist venues. This colorful, naïve the two most recent phases in the Paul Sternberg, Malgorzata Sugiera, James and relatively affordable mass pro- transformation of capitalism, which Sweeting, Charissa N. Terranova, Yvan Tina, duction may be charming, at least in are “late capitalism” (well known in Flutur Troshani, Ian Verstegen, John Vines, Claudia Westermann, Cecilia Wong, Martyn foreigners’ eyes, and it undoubtedly cultural interpretations thanks to Woodward, Jonathan Zilberg reinforces the marketable perception Frederic Jameson’s work on post-

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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 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: . ings by well-known and obscure doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01622 self-taught makers. It displays a subtle understanding of how this “art” was As a fan of biographies, I was excited suddenly positioned and redefined as to learn about A Mind at Play: How “folk art.” On the one hand, Morton Claude Shannon Invented the Infor- (NSF), to help with his differential also gives an extremely well-thought mation Age. Not only is it a timely analyzer. This was a mechanical contextual analysis of the artists and biography, this well-researched and analog computer that depended on artifacts that she studies: The personal easy-to-read book also captures the combinations of equivalent equations, history of the people who suddenly imagination. Because Jimmy Soni and using a wheel-and-disc mechanism appear in the no-longer-anonymous Rob Goodman take care to situate for computation. A major problem field of folk art is scrupulously inter- Shannon’s contributions in their cul- was that the equations needed to be rogated by re-placing it in the larger tural context, the volume encourages reconstructed for every problem, in context of a wide range of institu- the reader to explore their broader effect annihilating the very efficiency tions, public as well as private, for implications. Claude Shannon’s legacy the machine was meant to add to profit as well as for nonprofit, local is no doubt of particular interest to problem-solving. The resounding as well as national and international, Leonardo readers due to the range of question was, how could it reas- cultural as well as economic. On his work. If Shannon’s training and semble itself on the fly? Shannon, the other hand, Morton’s book has a conception of who was conversant with both sym- strong sense of the historical trans- brings the current elevation of STEM bolic logic and electrical circuitry, formations of works, practices and disciplines to mind, many of his produced a landmark master’s thesis discourses on folk art, and her study lesser known projects clearly align with an innovative solution, titled testifies to great archival research with projects associated with the “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and qualities. Most artists, authors, critics, STE(A)M (with the inclusion of Art) Switching Circuits.” In it the young curators, politicians, journalists, buy- community, although the authors Shannon tied Boolean Logic and ers, collectors, institutions, museums, never speak of STEAM per se. These circuitry together, conceptualizing a schools, etc. mentioned in this book include the playful spirit evident in path where 1’s and 0’s could represent are probably totally unknown outside his ongoing tinkering with electronic logical operators of Boole’s (AND, the little or big world of folk art under toys, his multifaceted studies of jug- OR, NOT) system, with an on switch scrutiny in this book—and there may gling and his unicycle experiments. standing for “true” and an off switch be a good chance that this will always So who was Claude Shannon? Born for “false.” remain the case. But the mechanisms in 1916 in Michigan, by all accounts After a brief stint at the Institute that Morton studies have an almost Shannon had an ordinary childhood. for Advanced Study (Princeton, New universal value—including the rela- Noteworthy traits included a love of Jersey), Shannon joined to tionship between art and cultural math and science, a dislike of facts work on World War II projects. Here policies, the shifting transformations and mechanical inclinations. These he found an environment that fos- of the discourse and appreciation of proclivities led him to pursue a dual tered cutting-edge discovery and even art over time, the semantic and ideo- degree in mathematics and engineer- met a visiting , another logical complexity of a notion such as ing at the University of Michigan. key figure of the Information Age. value, the convergent as well as diver- After Michigan, Shannon was hired The sections discussing the shared gent interests of all actors in the field, by the well-connected Vannevar interests of Shannon and Turing are the importance of power relation- Bush, then at MIT and later founder among the book’s high points, partic- ships in the cultural field, in short the of the National Science Foundation ularly in light of the role of computers

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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 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).

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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

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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, . 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 . was somewhat of a loner, Shannon’s instrumental in creating the technolo- doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01623 proclivities nonetheless anticipated gies of our digital age even though his the kinds of collaborative projects inability to fathom this demonstrates Light is a key dimension of our inter- often found in our world today. Yet he that life itself is not an engineering action with the environment, and it “was the sort of person for whom the problem, or at least not yet. . . . As the is at the crossroads of a wide range concept of ‘networking’ was distaste- authors write: of apparently diverging if not antago- ful when applied to anything other nistic notions and concepts such as than telephone lines” (p. 107). He is In 1948, Shannon’s theoretical subject and object, individual and nonetheless a figure who deserves work posed as many questions as collective, time and space, here and more attention, particularly from it answered. But the value of that now, but also then and there, natural individuals who favor a broadening challenge shouldn’t be underesti- and cultural, physical and symbolic, transdisciplinary approach. mated. . . . The striking feature of human and nonhuman, and uncon- Finally, what can we learn from his paper is the reverberation, the scious and self-reflexive, to name just Claude Shannon? According to the way in which it inaugurated an a few. Light is not something that “is” authors: Acknowledging his creative entire field of study, a body of dia- there or not or that we “see” as an body of work and how it defies char- logue and deliberation that would autonomous object; it is a complex acterization offers a useful corrective long outlive its author. . . . Few process that involves the creative to the urge to applaud specialization papers can claim an impact so encounter of all these dimensions in in our time. I agree with this. I’m less enduring (it has more than 91,000 a never-ending process of experience, enthusiastic about Shannon’s view citations and counting!), and it’s appropriation and interpretation. of the human mind. In an interview no exaggeration to say that, though The aim of Tim Edensor’s book is to with John Horgan he said: “I’m a information theory has important pay justice to light as a fundamental machine and you’re a machine, and antecedents prior to Shannon, the we both think, don’t we?” (p. 199). formal study of information begins Clearly his interest in artificial intel- in earnest with his work (p. 274). ligence was evident in many of his pursuits and in the machines he built. References Yet, sadly, Shannon’s life reminds us 1 The two-part paper is available online; that while our equations may soar to see C.E. Shannon, “A mathematical godly levels and we can craft objects theory of communication,” The Bell Sys- that contain a machine-like precision, tem Technical Journal 27, No. 3, 379–423 our human biological components (1948). doi: 10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948. tb01338.x (URL: ; C.E. Shan- ible to equations. Although Shannon non, “A Mathematical Theory of Com- believed that artificial brains would in munication,” The Bell System Technical Journal 27, No. 4, pp. 623–656 (1948), time surpass organic ones, the book doi: 10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb00917.x ends by reminding us that his aspira- (URL: . a part of his personal legacy. Tragi- 2 The short film is available at . non developed Alzheimer’s disease. 3 See my recent Leonardo review of There were indications in the 1980s, the Lewis Carroll Society of North and he entered a nursing home in America meeting,

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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: . ethnographical approach is embed- foreground the positive or negative doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01624 ded in a broad, culturally informed value of information and perception, phenomenological approach (hence are among the most robust scientific The word Rosebud disappears in the huge presence of someone like descriptions of the light and dark flames. A book of matches with Tim Ingold in the opening chapter of experience we have today) and also identifying initials lands near Eve, the book), while the literature study of literature and film studies, where a signal that Roger is nearby. Jack’s testifies to an excellent knowledge one finds countless phenomeno- stack of typewritten pages, repeating of very different types of documents logically oriented interpretations of the same phrase over and over again, and research (there is a lot of room in the embodied perception of visual terrifies his wife Wendy. These and the work by Wolfgang Schivelbusch stimuli). many other moments of textuality and David Nye, for instance, both The wealth of information and in cinema history are collected in authors of classic studies on light and sources gathered by Edensor is such Michel Chion’s Words on Screen. The dark, but one finds also an in-depth that the repeated claim of the neglect center of the book contains 256 black- discussion of policy documents, of light and dark does not sound and-white images of evidence: words fieldwork reports and philosophical very convincing. Indeed, the wealth floating, dissolving, hiding, standing analyses—yes, the inevitable Jacques of sources and documents one finds up straight and otherwise battling for Rancière and his “distribution of the in From Light to Dark is one of the presence in the physical world of light sensible,” this today’s shibboleth of great merits of the book. Another one and shadow. One of Chion’s stated the well-integrated scholar, is quoted would be the author’s fundamental aims is to “shower the reader with various times. Finally, although this is honesty and the desire to respect as examples,” as if the sheer quantity and not really made explicit in the book, much as possible the ideas and inten- plurality makes the argument that Edensor is also working toward the tions of the authors and artists (in the cinema can’t escape written language. framing of his material in the field of urban design) he is discussing. As Chion points out in the last chap- cultural studies context of Raymond Edensor puts himself at the service ter, reviewing these illustrations for Williams’s “structures of feeling,” of his sources, but he tends to do so his book, cinema asserts itself as a which allows him not only to stress at the expense of his own take on the writing surface or “immaterial paper” the historically and culturally chang- material. True, the author extensively where language appears and disap- ing interpretations of light and dark quotes from his own notebooks and pears over the continuous image. but also to examine the growing experiences, which are always rich Compared to the contingent world dissatisfaction with the ubiquity of and interesting, but the reader might captured on film, words on a screen light and the possible strategies of have expected a stronger personal seem flat, two-dimensional and even a rediscovery of darkness as a positive vision, something that goes beyond “child-like.” value. the general claims on the cultural The book is divided into three sec- As this review makes clear, Tim embedding of light, the relationship tions. In Part 1, The Infinite Inventory,

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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: . usually exists in a controlled envi- doi:10. 1162/LEON_r_01625 ronment with conventions and rules for navigation. The directionality of “Non semel quaedam sacra tradun- reading, for example, is in contrast tur” [1]—Lucius Anneus Seneca to the multi-directionality of cinema wrote this quote in his Naturales space, where a pan in any direction Quaestiones (65 AD), one of the few can be understood. The camera may works that in ancient times dealt with the author presents general types of faithfully track the reader’s eyes glid- “scientific” matters, collecting facts of cinema textuality: “overlays” such as ing along the reading surface, but at nature from contemporary sources. credit sequences or subtitles, “inserts” any moment it can also break free The Roman philosopher and politi- such intertitles with narration or from the restrictions of writing space cian always had an eye for possible dialogue, and “inclusions” of writing and reenter the three-dimensional moral advancements based on objec- such as handwritten notes, post- flux of cinema space. Chion asks why tive observations; the intent of his ers, signs, typed pages or computer there are so many instances of writ- encyclopedia was, in fact, to discover screens. But in these many examples, ing’s destruction in cinema history. a foundation for ethics in the knowl- Chion chooses to complicate rather He uses the term “excription” for an edge of nature. A similar outlook is than simplify his system. Text within “inscription that does not ‘hang on to’ shown two thousand years later in The cinema space sometimes requires the world, doesn’t incorporate into it.” Edge of Objectivity, the masterwork of the invention of terms. “Athorybos,” The typed words of an author dissolve Charles Coulston Gillispie, published for example, is an aspect of an image into the scene being depicted. Impor- in 1960 (with the second edition and that should or might produce a sound tant messages are erased, rubbed out, a new preface presented here issued but does not. Diegetic writing in a deleted. Teardrops and rain dissolve in 1990) and originating from lectures sound film that is not accompanied ink on love notes. Letters are torn the author gave at Princeton Univer- by a voice or utterance is an athorybal and tossed to the wind or sea. Books sity. Although he was a chemist and message, a “mute call that asks us to (and inscribed sleds) turn black in not a historian—as his critics harshly lend it our own voice.” the furnace. Chion’s intuition is that remarked—Gillispie had previously Part 2, Writing, Reading, “aims to cinema wants to escape the flatness tackled science’s history with Genesis problematize cinema’s representation of writing and yet needs writing to and Geology (Harvard, 1951), a pon- of these two activities.” Here Chion enact its disappearance into image, derous volume on scientific thought examines the affect and material- again and again. Words are erased in in Great Britain 1790–1850. He would ity of writing/reading on the screen: cinema “not to make room for more pursue further historical research, the sensuality of ink and paper, the writing but for the writing that has with Lazare Carnot, Savant (Prince- mechanical clacking of a typewriter, disappeared from the screen to be ton, 1971), the biography Pierre-Simon the darkened screen space of early inscribed, or rather excribed, in us.” Laplace (1978), and two other works: computers. Cinema’s ability to jump Words on Screen is not about find- Science and Polity in France at the End scales, from long shot to close-up, ing tidy answers but about uncover- of the Old Regime (Princeton, 1980) integrates the intimate spaces of ing new riddles in the relationship and The Montgolfier Brothers and reading or writing—the flatness, between text and image. Chion’s the Invention of Aviation, 1783–1784 abstraction and linearity of a page, for research into these questions feels (Princeton, 1983). However, none of example—with the multidimension- new and is of immense value to schol- them reached the popularity then ality and simultaneity of the larger ars and artists working through the attained by The Edge of Objectivity. world captured by the camera. The entanglements of words on screens in People can see science as a con- challenge of depicting text-messaging the post-digital age, where all surfaces tinuous refinement of inductive in contemporary movies is in the have the potential of being cinematic thoughts emerging from the “objec- integration of these two visual orders. interfaces. tive” observation of separated facts

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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)

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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: . mathematician Thom and the surreal- ist Salvador Dalí. Both controversial, Maxwell,” he argued “would require doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01626 either a higher mathematical com- they did meet late in Dalí’s life and petence than this history has so far In many ways this is a remarkable got on very well. exacted of the reader (or the author), book. It is unquestionably on fine The book is a very brave attempt or else a wider departure from the art, but the author is an academic to marry the precise mathematics of text that has been the policy by engineer who is obviously very catastrophe theory and other related which the book has been composed” mathematically knowledgeable. The mathematics to what is meant by (p. 494). question is: Does the marriage work? beauty, an attempt to link the very There is something fascinating That it might is to a large extent precise with the imprecise. This in the vision of Gillispie: science is down to the writing skill of McRo- reviewer thinks it mostly success- perhaps the only field in which his- bie. When commenting on a topic ful, but credit is due to the erudition tory taught some lessons—to science such as the beauty of curves, one is of the author plus the quality of the

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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 . ity—in short the building of a deeply together. open and shared human community The specific corpus on which doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01627 we call culture. Following Flusser and Tenen elaborates these ideas is “text,” This book is not just about opening Shklovsky, Tenen observes that our more precisely “plain text,” which the black box of digital reading and interaction with technological devices he defines, quoting the Unicode writing, the devices and programs is defined by attitudes of comfort, Standard, in opposition the notion we use to do so, or the digital turn habituation and security. In order to of “fancy text”: The former is a file of our culture. Written by an English use technology in an easy way, we format that contains nothing but a and comparative literature profes- have to stop worrying about it—and pure sequence of character codes; the sor who is also a trained engineer this is what Tenen claims we all do. latter is text representation consisting and a migrant, having moved from The final result is a sharp decline of of plain text plus added information. post-Soviet Russia to the “global” meaning, what Tenen calls “asemio- This distinction is not purely techni- Northwest, Plain Text is a vibrant call sis”: we no longer understand what we cal; it also involves a frame of mind. to rethink the two-culture debate in are doing, and in most cases we sim- In the tradition of textual criticism, broad cultural and political terms. ply no longer ask questions, a state of plain text also refers to a method of The methodological and theoreti- mind the author compares to a com- text transcription that is both “faith- cal framework that is used here to plete surrender to Baudrillard’s hyper- ful to the text of its source” and achieve such a mutual rethinking— reality (a state of mind in which we “easier to read than the original docu- and enrichment—of technology are no longer interested in the “object” ment” (Tenen quotes here the phi- and humanism is twofold. First of the “sign” is supposed to refer to in losophy of American textual criticism all, Tenen’s approach can be roughly traditional semiotics). Yet this asemi- as summarized by Don L. Cook). situated in the field of media archeol- osis is exactly what those who control These two dimensions of the notion ogy—and like the best representatives technological systems want us to do— of “plain text” (the purely technical of this discipline, Plain Text is a truly provided of course it is still possible one and the critical-philological one) interdisciplinary work, which does to identify in these traditional terms are the background of Tenen’s reflec- not refrain from addressing either the “owner” of technology. However, tion on the way technological devices, highly detailed technical discussions the fact that it is not always easy to or big philosophical issues that enable discover who owns technology cer- the author to revisit some key think- tainly does not mean that technology ers of (Western) philosophy such as is owned by its user. One of the basic Plato, Bacon and Heidegger, among political claims of this book is that the many others. Second, Plain Text also user may gain much by abandoning assumes in a very radical manner her possible “estrangement” in tech- the intellectual and critical heritage nological matters, but that this gain, of two “displaced” thinkers, namely which is mainly a gain in comfort, Vilém Flusser and Viktor Shklovsky, comes with a terrible loss, for if users whose life and work are seen by no longer have any interest in—and Tenen as an illustration of the advan- thus no longer any possible knowl- tages of looking at things through edge of—technology, they fall prey the eyes of the outsider and trying to the rules and interests of the tech- to do so in ways that make them new, niques and devices that rule their lives that is, strange (the central concept (e-books, for instance, may seem easy of Shklovsky, one of the major theo- to purchase, but actually they are not reticians of Russian Formalism, is really purchases; what the reader buys “defamiliarization,” while Flusser’s is no longer a text she can share but

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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: . founding father of psychology, carried understanding of the mutual deter- out a test with different rectangles doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01628 mination of culture and technology. (of the same area) but different sizes. Some of these stereotypes are hidden This is a delightful publication with The majority of recipients preferred in more or less catchy metaphors chapters that cover all aspects of the the rectangle of the golden ratio; the (such as for instance the paper-based mysterious golden ratio. This so- minority preferred the square. “At this expressions that still structure our called Divine Proportion is mysteri- point, one could close this chapter way of using our computer screen and ous indeed, and although the book’s with the universal law of aesthetics that do not match at all what actually lofty aim is to solve the enigma, confirmed. But unfortunately it is happens beneath the surface). Others unfortunately it remains unsolved. not quite that simple” (p. 150). Höge refer to ceaselessly repeated conven- If anything, despite the scholarly, repeated the experiment exactly in tions that do not resist more careful erudite essays, the golden ratio as 2016 with diametrically opposed inquiries (such as the idea that “natu- a Divine feature of the universe results: The minority preferred the ral” language is “analog,” that is con- remains as enigmatic as ever. golden ratio and the majority the tinuous, while “machine” language The book is beautifully produced square. So much for a universal law? would be “digital,” that is discontinu- and graphically rich; numerous illus- The previous example shows the

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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.

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