Bow, then silence

The process behind perception has been a key subject of ceaseless attention and study. In many ways, the concept can be understood as a boundary object [1] that mediates between our epistemological frameworks and their futile belief to define the world in terms of "reality", and even more useless, "a common reality". Concisely, Glasersfeld (1995) highlighted in his Radical Constructivism theory, that “whenever we interpret what others say, or the way they act, we interpret what we hear or see in terms of elements that are part of our own experience. We cannot have another’s experience“. It is clear that in order to achieve this, we always need the social vehicle that enhances the negotiation of meanings with others within the communication process; however this constant endeavor of knowledge construction requires reflective and customized actions to successfully analyze events and phenomena. It is indeed an individual process not independent from the social construct as Wenger (1998) explains: “even drastic isolation -as in solitary confinement, monastic seclusion, or writing- is given meaning through social participation“. There is however a explicit challenge in relation to our current information stream and its rapid development as Harper (2010) extensively explains “there is a perception that we are now suffering from an age of communications excess“, something that could be detrimental to our “semiotic digestion“ framework which is critical when dealing with the communication object in its different shades of relevance. Biosphere, Lustmord & MFO: ‘Trinity’ Right in the opening lecture of Sonic Acts, a sparkling number of examples disclosed contextual conditions behind Physics and pioneering projects that impacted contemporary society during the last hundred years. Anil Ananthaswamy started his talk explaining how Edwin Hubble and George Hale came to the idea of building the Mount Wilson Observatory in such a place. Adams (1947) remembered that “in the establishment of the Observatory he (Hale) found the complete fulfillment of his ideal of an institution devoted purely to research, free from many of the restrictions imposed by university affiliations [...] Its quite and peace, the sense of remoteness and isolation, the changing views, and the brilliant skies by day and night were a constant joy". An uncanny moment of contemplation, a place capable of nesting those lucid thoughts blossoming exclusively in communion with the silent universe. Such stories nevertheless have historical roots in different cultures and knowledge communities as Fullerton (2010) remembered, "Christ's 40 days in the wilderness, the Buddha's meditations underneath the Bodhi tree, or Mohammed's regular journeys to the cave on Jabal Nur—all of which the protagonists undertook alone. [...] And we can find more stories just like de Montaigne's: Jack Kerouac's six months on a California fire platform, Georgia O'Keefe's ranch in the New Mexico desert, or the reclusiveness of many authors such as Thomas Pynchon or the late J.D. Salinger. The ability to access creativity has perhaps been disrupted by the ever increasing connectedness of our world". One of the features that repeatedly amazed me as Sonic Acts unveiled a never-ending set of ethereal questions, was the confrontation established between events and public. Staring faces getting lost into a sea of interpretations, a constant negotiation that pursued the completion of objects and performances. As Duchamp, Beuys, Hundertwasser and many others announced during the 20th century, the active role of the spectator is fundamental for the semiotic wholeness, shaped in ambiguity to cast away the reductive and figurative slavery. To perceive in this context, means to vanish time away and explore our mental spaces. Sonic Acts materializes this possibility to embrace introspection, a process that takes place only if we accept the open invitation that beats in the interactive nature of the substrate and the senses. It is worth trying to follow these roadways that lead us into reflective meadows. Surrounded by relentless sonic textures, mutating colors and movements, we were able to discover fossils in the air, right in the middle of apparent emptiness of the mystical and dark, all that is unintelligible to the common reality. The richness we have gathered in this ephemeral society is possible just under open conditions behind the abstraction of forms, the act of faith that keeps us away from “La société du spectacle“ portrayed by Debord in 1967 but instead encourage us to believe back in "this idea of a solitude we find in moments of disconnection and looking away" in order to "focus and find the way in which we engage with the world around us", as expressed by Fullerton. We were a crowd in the same place, but when closing our eyes and letting ourselves go, we got to find a precious land in our inner processes, there where each of us as individuals re-encountered with societies of memories. Audience [1] Concept introduced by Leigh Star and Griesemer in 1989. ------------- Adams, Walter S. (1947, October). Early Days at Mount Wilson, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 59(350), 213. Retrieved March 10, 2013, from http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1947PASP...59..213A/0000221.000.html Fullerton, Ben. (2010, November). Designing for solitude. Interactions 17(6), 6. Retrieved March 10, 2013, from ACM Digital Library. Glasersfeld, Ernst von.  (1995).  Radical constructivism : a way of knowing and learning.  London ; Washington, D.C. :  Falmer Press Harper, Richard H. R. (2010). Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload. New York, USA. : The MIT Press. Wenger, Etienne. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity. New York, USA. : Cambridge University Press.

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