2010年12月5日 星期日

【轉載】男性食指比無名指長 易是同性戀



2010年12月05日 壹蘋果

英國《每日郵報》報導,科學家自1980年代起進行手指長短的研究,發現食指和無名指的長短,會影響一個人的個性、性向和脾氣。研究認為手指長度受男性荷爾蒙影響,食指較無名指長的男性,容易過敏、罹患精神分裂症,且較女性化,成為同性戀的機率較高。無名指較食指長的男性,行為較有侵略性,幼時容易過動,長大容易為性愛冒險。


WHAT YOUR INDEX FINGER REVEALS ABOUT YOU
By Paul Robins from Daily Star Sunday

WOMEN with short fingers are more likely to be gay and succeed in their jobs.

And men with long index fingers tend to do better at school and have less chance of getting cancer.

Researchers say these are just some of the character traits determined by the size of a person’s index and ring fingers.

The length also determines what films you like, how sporty you are and even your skills on the stock market, according to scientists.

They found men whose index finger is shorter than their ring finger are more fertile, more aggressive and better at sport.

They are also far less likely to be struck down with heart disease and prostate cancer.

However, girls with short index fingers are at greater risk of breast cancer and prone to allergies and schizophrenia.

People with short fingers also make better soldiers, engineers and chess players, but have more chance of ending up behind bars. They are also more likely to experiment with drugs, watch violent films and become addicted to booze.

And they will probably also be poorer and find it harder to hold down a job.

But long index fingers are considered more feminine. Men who have them tend to be gay, while women with long digits are more likely to be lesbians.

Men whose ring finger is longer than their index finger are sexier, according to the scientists.

But women are more attractive as mates if their index fingers are longer.

The findings, by biologist Dr John Manning, are based on the digital ratio between the ring and index fingers.

In men, higher levels of pre-birth testosterone meant the ring finger was generally longer than the index finger.

In women, higher oestrogen levels led to the index finger being the same length or longer than the ring finger.

paul.robins@dailystar.co.uk


A long index finger means less risk of prostate cancer
December 1, 2010 by Rory Fitzgerald from NewsWHIP.ie

New research shows that the length of a man’s fingers can indicate his risk of prostate cancer. A just-published study found that men whose index finger is longer than their ring finger are less prone to the disease. Researchers at University of Warwick and the UK’s Institute of Cancer Research compared the hands of 1,500 prostate cancer patients with 3,000 healthy men. The length of our fingers is fixed before birth, and is largely determined by sex hormone levels in the womb. A long index finger indicates lower exposure to testosterone before birth, which may protect against prostate cancer later in life. The BBC reports that that the findings could offer a simple test for prostate cancer risk.

2010年12月1日 星期三

【轉載】控制基因

天生好手! 建仔多一組運動基因
2010/11/18
【聯合晚報╱記者李樹人/台北報導】

台灣之光王建民站上美國大聯盟投手丘,這是天生注定!?王建民最近完成全基因體定序及檢測,結果發現,他果然與眾不同,與常人相較,他多了一組與動運肌肉表現有關的基因,這也讓他成為天生好手。


鴻海集團首次跨足國內生醫界,投資康聯生醫科技,著手進行一項名為「H-Gene」的基因計畫,將全基因體定序與個人健康管理結合,改寫全球健康產業模式。


康聯生醫總經理蔡政憲指出,「基因」對許多人來說,既熟悉卻又陌生,人體基因由四種鹼基排列組合成鹼基對,人體共有30億對鹼基對,數量相當於15套大英百科全書,120億個文字。


這項基因計畫將基因體定序首度被運用在個人健康管理,每個人只要抽5mL(毫升)的血液,大約兩個月就可得到全基因體定序資料。


蔡政憲指出,基因定序關乎在一輩子的健康,例如可預測罹患糖尿病、乳癌或心臟病等發生率機率,甚至是肥胖、老人癡呆的傾向,清楚自身潛藏的疾病危機。


例如「管理」脂肪的基因如果出現問題,罹患心臟病的機率則將高於正常人群;「負責」排毒的基因如出現缺陷,上了年齡後,患癌風險就大增。與維生素D代謝有關的基因,將直接對骨質產生影響。


蔡政憲進一步指出,經由專家團隊分析,可了解受檢者可能罹患特定疾病的風險、是否有潛在性家族遺傳疾、對藥物的反應、飲食營養的代謝情況,以及自身體質的優缺點。


以王建民為例,兩個月前抽血接受全基因體定序,結果發現他能成為一流投手,除了努力外,基因給予他的先天優點,也是主因之一。


蔡政憲表示,王建民基因定序報告中,出現一組與眾不同的基因,而這組基因表現與運動特質有關,醫界發現,在許多世界籍的優秀運動選手都帶有這個顯性基因。


【2010/11/18 聯合晚報】

2010年11月29日 星期一

蝴蝶、斑馬與胚胎之摘錄3

◎成功研究出動物形體如何正確發生的其中一個方法,便是研究身體部位數量變化或是長錯位置的怪胎...

◎所有的組織者在生物組織或細胞中都會影響樣式的形成,或作「形態發生」(morphogenesis)的性質。基本上,它們的特殊活動就是來自於組織者細胞會產生影響其他細胞發展的物質,這類物質被稱為「形態生長因子」(morphogen)。

◎組織者的作用取決於它們距離目標細胞的距離....

◎...組織者活性來自於一群細胞的活性,任何一種細胞都會產生上千種物質,而負責組織者活性的物質也可能不只一種。

◎移植雖然是一項利器,胚胎學家仍需要有其他方法,以便在複雜的細胞生化世界中找出形態生長因子...

◎貝特森將這些畸形分成兩種基本型,一種是重複部位的數量發生改變,另一種是身體某部位變形為另一個部位的相似物。他將後者稱之為「同源」(homeotic, 從希臘文homeos而來,意思是同樣或相似的變異)

◎...釐清這類形體究竟是遺傳性的,還是因為胚胎在成形時受到物理性損害而造成(如此一來便不會遺傳下去)...

◎同源突變能夠將一個結構完全轉變為另一個,...這並不是發育不良或失敗,而是整個構造的命運被轉換,造成一個部位的錯置,或是部位的數量錯誤。關鍵在於這是系列同源部位之間的轉變,一種部位變為其他的相似部位(觸角之於腿,後翅之於前翅)...

◎只有少數的「同源」基因會在發生突變時造成同源形體,這意味著有一小群的「主控」基因掌管著果蠅身體中系列同源部位的分化。

2010年11月28日 星期日

蝴蝶、斑馬與胚胎之摘錄2

◎相近的動物都是由十分類似的構造所組成

◎各類動物都是由類似建材的數量同樣的零件所構成的

◎演化在動物設計上普遍使用重複部位與模組結構

◎個別的身體部位也反映出這種模組設計的主題(比方說手跟腳)

◎「發生」這項大工程─從一個微小的細胞開始,建構出複雜的大型動物

◎動物設計的模組與部位重複,反映出動物形體的次序

◎考量一批特定動物時,會發現牠們之間最明顯的差異是來自重覆結構的「數量」與「種類」

◎「同源」(homologos)(如不同動物之間的同部位,如蠑螈、蜥腳類和老鼠的前肢與我們的手臂)、「系列同源」(serial homologos)(如同物種的不同部位,如前肢與後肢)

◎Samuel Williston 「這(也)是一種演化定律,有機體的各部位傾向減少數量,僅有較少的部位具有高度特化的功能」.....即一旦數量增加,系列同源構造便會出現功能特化、數量減少的情況

◎對稱性(symmetry)與極性(polarity)

2010年11月24日 星期三

蝴蝶、斑馬與胚胎之摘錄1

發生指的是由一顆卵成長為胚胎,最後轉變為成體的過程,而形體的演化是來自發生的改變。p22

基因時空模式表現的演化會造成形體改變,尤其是那些影響特定結構之數量、形狀或大小的基因。p28

2010年11月19日 星期五

珊瑚練習




日前經grasshopper的練習捕捉珊瑚生物機制的造型演練,這是階段性的成果,持續演化中...

2010年11月17日 星期三

張大春真敢講,讓人臉紅心跳

張大春真敢講,大概他也不缺別人賞飯吃吧!
不過....
好像之前造型藝術那首歌
另一件國王新衣事件

過一陣子應該就恢復平靜了
結構這麼穩固,大家都要謀生活,不是嗎?
況且眼光放大旁觀其運作,世界不就充滿如此的荒誕的糾纏嗎?

美國大肆浪費地球資源(石油、消費),結果破產了就大印美鈔,啟動貨幣戰爭,全球物價上揚,只因他是有牌流氓....
用選票選出一個平庸的人,決定許多影響大家生活的事...好笨喔
設計競圖做太深入怕評審看不懂而平庸化,因為評審都選比較中庸的、有名的...設計師與評審都好不專業喔
近來醫學指出由於口交氾濫,性器官內的潛藏病毒引發人們口腔癌的機率........很矛盾吧

哀!我也很熱血對於這些不公不義不平之事,感到憤怒!
但是,憤怒應該留在某種原初的狀態,擱置放下他,更應專注聚焦在自己的奮鬥上,或許應該這樣勉勵自己,繼續往前走吧!
這些不平之事,還是可以說,但是少點憤怒,多點幽默吧!

大春前輩,息怒阿!還這麼熱血阿!

生物的演化很神奇,都市的運作很複雜,人生的命運很詭譎,一笑置之吧!


原文如下:

張大春:狗屁的文化創意產業 PO文回應淡大生
2010-11-17 中國時報 【林欣誼/台北報導】
 張大春在個人部落格貼出「答大學生──關於狗屁的文化創意產業」一文,以「詐騙集團」、「惡性腫瘤」比喻他根本不承認存在的「文創產業」,他指出:「文創產業的來歷是一群寄生蟲般的人物……他們的興趣和職責就是媒合政商資源,看起來充其量不過就是一種兼領經紀人和營銷者身分的幫閒份子。」

 這篇文章的源由來自一名自稱淡江大學學生的留言,這位學生表示校內開設「文化創意產業學分學程」,來自業界的老師,卻藉課堂為自己事業宣傳,因此質疑學界是否該應業界需要而改變學術方向。這位學生也轉貼在淡大任教的台灣文創公司董事總經理陳甫彥的演講文連結,希望張大春為他解釋這篇他「聽不懂的演講」。

 張大春的答覆火力全開。他表示,有一群沒有創作與研究能力的人,闖入出版、表演等傳統領域,虛構出「文化創意產業」一詞。「創作者拉不下臉來談生意,就需要他們。他們生意談大了,就回過頭來指導創作者。創作者要是沒出息一點,就等著被這種人掌控、消費或淘汰。」而淡大設立的這種學程是「建築在臺灣集體幻覺上的一個單位」。他力勸大學生「不要浪費生命,趕快遠離這個學程。」

 張大春昨天接受採訪時表示,他不否認文化界應該要有好的出版業、優良的影視、健全的經紀人制度、充分的技術資源,但作家跟音樂家、舞蹈家跟畫家等跨界合作早已不知進行多少年,現在卻發明出「文化創意產業」一詞,名為鼓勵,其實卻是一個政府補助的名目。

 張大春說:「這個名詞是空泛的,就像『創意總監』這個詞也是空的一樣,我只是指出國王的新衣,以及台灣社會的虛幻與百無聊賴。」

 他認為文創產業是個空泛的名詞,更對於文創產業進入學院成了一門學程,直言是「學院的墮落,低級得要死」。

 他表示,一門學術必須在教育系統經過長時間的累積才足以形成,但有的大學卻趕時髦,跟著語詞起舞,疊床架屋地搞出一套學院論述,「就像老鼠會一樣,不瞭解的人被騙進來,然後就繼續騙人,發展出一套論述,非常離譜。」

2010年10月11日 星期一

【轉貼】Google研發自動駕駛車 反應比人靈敏 ; Google tests cars that drive themselves



The cars have done thousands of miles, Google says


Nobody spotted the Google car crossing the Golden Gate Bridge


【聯合報╱編譯組/綜合報導】 2010.10.11 04:27 am


網路巨擘Google最近在加州對他們研發的自動駕駛車進行試車,它以豐田的Prius油電車改裝而成,駕駛座有人,但不開車,車頂的漏斗狀圓筒,也是汽車的「眼睛」十分吸睛,不過,Google擅自在加州進行自動駕駛試車,更讓道路安全專家側目,當局正調查是否違法。

Google正祕密研發自動駕駛汽車,它利用人工智慧軟體感應汽車的周遭環境,再模仿人類,作出一連串的駕駛決定。Google有七輛車同時試車。每車的駕駛座有一人,於車子出差錯時隨時接手,後座有一技師,負責監控導航系統。根據紀錄,自動汽車可完全無人為干預狀況下行駛一千六百公里,測試過程總行駛里程已超過二十三萬公里,僅偶爾須人為介入。

七部原型車目前僅有一次車禍紀錄,而且並非自動車本身的問題,而是停在紅綠燈前被後面的車輛追撞。

工程師表示,自動駕駛系統反應比人類靈敏,擁有三百六十度全方位感應,且不受分心、打瞌睡或酒精、藥物影響,自動駕駛汽車一旦上路,工程師相信,車禍死亡人數可望減半。

Google堅稱他們上路前,已問過律師,並無違法問題,且Google的自動駕駛汽車不會危及其他駕駛。該公司強調,研發自動駕駛汽車即是為減少車禍發生,且他們試車時,均有人在車上。


Engineers at Google have tested a self-driving car on the streets of California, the company has announced.

The cars use video cameras mounted on the roof, radar sensors and a laser range finder to "see" other traffic, software engineer Sebastian Thrun said.

They remain manned at all times by a trained driver ready to take control as well as by a software expert.

Google hopes the cars can eventually help reduce road traffic and cut the number of accidents.

In a posting on the company's official blog, Mr Thrun said the self-driven cars had so far covered 140,000 miles on the road.

They have crossed San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate bridge, negotiated the city's famous sloping streets, driven between Google offices, and made it around Lake Tahoe in one piece.


'Exciting future'

Engineers told the New York Times that the forays onto the highways have been largely incident-free, apart from one bump when the car was reportedly hit from behind at a traffic light.

In his Google blog post, Mr Thrun - professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University - insisted that safety was the "first priority" in the project.

Routes are pre-planned, mapped first by real drivers, and local police are briefed in advance, he says.

But he pointed to figures from the World Health Organization which show that more than 1.2 million people are killed each year on the roads, and said that number could and should be reduced.

"We believe our technology has the potential to cut that number, perhaps by as much as half.


"While this project is very much in the experimental stage, it provides a glimpse of what transportation might look like in the future thanks to advanced computer science. And that future is very exciting," he added.

Google has rapidly branched out from its previous core business of search in recent years.

The company already has significant interests in location services through its Google Maps and Google Street View offerings.

2010年10月5日 星期二

是是是視覺藝術 MV



透過學生的張貼,我看到這首歌,相當有趣!我覺得不只是歌曲RAP也是視覺藝術。
作者資料如下:
詞/曲/編曲/Ukulele/唱:艸執法(藍建庭) MSN and mail:lct9238@hotmail.com

用全螢幕特別爽!
enjoy it! it is pretty cool!

2010年9月27日 星期一

coral reef man




近來研究珊瑚的生長,無意間看到這男子的皮膚生長出如珊瑚礁的硬材,還真的嚇人!不過也倒是蠻令人奇特的經驗。神奇四超人其一!開玩笑的!比較重要的是形態生成的邏輯與秩序在生活世界裡無所不在,即便疾病都是以精細嚴謹的方式呈現,除了致命與恐懼之外也是美的呈現。


from kidsolo's newspaper

reef man is cured.
MAN who was dubbed the human coral reef after huge shell-like growths appeared all over his body has been cured.

Lin Tianzhuan was unable to move his arms and legs and said his “terrifying” condition made him feel like he was turning to stone.

The 38-year-old, of Shuimen in southern China, added people would scream when they saw him.

Horrified Lin became a hermit, hiding at the family home after he was shunned by friends and neighbours.

He began to notice the hard growths on his hands and feet when he was just 13.

He said: “They grew and grew and soon they were all over my arms and legs, my back and even my head. It was as if I was turning to stone and it was terrifying.

“Gradually my shell became thicker and thicker and I could no longer bend my arms or my legs. It was very frightening.”

But now, thanks to a year of treatment and surgery by doctors from a special skin clinic, he only has a few discoloured patches of skin to show for his horrific condition.

Fuzhou Dermatosis Prevention Hospital vice president Dr Liu Yinghong said: “He may need radiotherapy for quite some time still but he has made very good progress.”

2010年8月15日 星期日

LED triggered by LDR





The setting for the LDR exercise is the same as the button exercise except that the button is replaced by LDR(light dependent resistor) which leads to the environment light brightness as the factor controlling the LED's on/off. It is a simple interesting sensor-based electrical circuit.

The 2nd exercise is modified based on the previous one, but the output pin is shifted to the PWM which conveys not only the yes or no value but also how much the value is and what quality the value effects the environment condition.

2010年8月10日 星期二

button to control LED's ON/OFF & its brightness





After resting 4 2 weeks, i am back on my arduino journey. the new practice is about how to use button to control a LED's on/off and its brightness.

LED on/off is shown before, however, the interesting thing is setting the brightness by using the same button with PWM(pulse width modulation) concept. PWM is preset in arduino already. it is arrangement of the proportion of on and off to modulate the desired condition for brightness of LED or speed of motors etc.

it is a little exercise from chapter 5 in "getting started with arduino".

2010年7月24日 星期六

arduino gogogo



最近開始又多學一件微控制器的平台arduino,之前學的是較難的pic。
arduino是特別開發給原本非專業領域的人員,如設計者、藝術家等。其中程式語言對於使用者而言較簡化,工具也整合的較親民。對於設計教學而言,似乎較為容易。但pic較廣為業界實用,似乎功能也較強大,但孰者較為適切,再慢慢端視情境發展吧!

這是一個按鍵控制led燈發亮的練習。還蠻好玩的。

2010年7月22日 星期四

生命體建築





近期世界各地建築先鋒的另一群人正在做另一種突破的創舉,不是寫程式、畫3d、製作人工機械,而是真的將生命帶入建築。看見這些作品的成就,很值得為他們喝采!

當建築是生命體時,不管是機械生命、真實的生化生命、機械與生命混種的新結合、奈米微尺度世界裡,建築絕對有另一層的注解。過去如此,現在如此,未來也是一樣。世界是動態的,所有感受認知的都在變化中。

這跟我長期以來的建築思考是很貼近的,也一直有這樣的想法,但總是老跟不上步伐實踐。社會看待設計總是先做先贏。

也該反省反省自己:
一方面,建築先鋒者真不好當,實在需要不斷地努力。
另一方面來說,其實也不能只靠努力,因為獲得資源其實更是重要,這些人背後勢必有很多機構來支持這些工作。光是努力似乎太駝鳥。
學習的速度與效率也需要提升。
另外,一顆平常智慧的心,除了基本陪伴艱辛與孤獨外,更能在受人冷嘲熱諷或是承受先鋒同儕彼此之間的競爭壓力時,不至於失心瘋。

再加油吧!

延伸閱讀:
http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/08/in-vitro-habitat-a-house-made-of-meat/
http://www.archinode.com/index.html

2010年4月5日 星期一

與楚米對話




因為整理資料,重新整理楚米的理論,在網站上閱讀到此篇文章,覺得受用。
在充滿技術電腦軟件導向的設計趨勢下,有時候也該停下腳步,看看自己在哪裡。
設計思潮不會中斷,遲早都會聯在一起。
原址網站 original website

避免遺失連結,將原文附上如下。

A conversation with
Bernard Tschumi

by Liliana Gómez


Movements, positions and moments of trans-lating/rotating in architectural thinking

Conceptualization and Transcription: Liliana Gómez
Camera: Steffen Popescu


The Manhattan Transcripts differ from most architectural drawings insofar as they are neither real projects nor mere fantasies.
They propose to transcribe an architectural interpretation of reality.
(...) Their implicit purpose has to do with the twentieth-century city. [1]


The act of transcribing an architectural interpretation of reality raises the question of how to define architecture after Modernism. The question came up in a recent conversation with Bernard Tschumi, the New York based architect. Tschumi had raised the question before, in 1974, when he proposed a change in the relation between architectural practice, representation, and thinking architecture. His proposal suggests a shift whose legacy has yet to be confronted by succeeding generations of architects. Although best known for his architectural and urban projects, realized mostly in France, Tschumi is also known for the emergence of Deconstruction theories in architectural debates, particularly for his proposal of a singular conception of architecture’s definition in the context of a postmodern society and culture. The following conversation took place on June 1, 2005, at his New York office, and it took a surprising trajectory when approaching the issue of the state of architecture today.

Prefixes and their contrapuntal routes

Liliana Gómez: With no doubt, today at the 21 st century as it reflects all the ruptures and unfulfilled predicaments of the 20 th century, the questions of crisis of representation, of discourse and of the grand narratives are brought back when the city and its architecture are considered - in search for different forms of writing history. In the processes' complexity, we can observe an attention to movements and positions, logics and practices of "trans-lating" and maybe "rotating". Once, diagnosing a social and theoretical unstable state, you propose in an essay 1987 the prefixes "de-", "dis-", "ex-" to outline a radical shift with programmatic impact on analytic and descriptive categories. You said: "Ex-centric, dis-integrated, dis-located, dis-juncted, deconstructed, dismantled, disassociated, discontinous, deregulated... de-, dis-, ex-. These are the prefixes of today" [2]. Today, we can observe certain signs of fatigue concerning those prefixes, which provoked a necessary decentering of the one's certain position of discourse. Now, we see clearly the transitional state by reverting to prefixes like "trans-" or even "re-", re-defining the conceptual shift once made [3]. Could you as an architect or a philosopher explain your attention to those small linguistic entities once chosen and if you consider them still adequate and programmatic to explain the state we are in? Could you also explain the paradigmatic impact those prefixes had and maybe still have on architectural thinking and practice?

Bernard Tschumi: I could speak about an hour, but I try to keep it very short. And I will start with "de-", "dis-", "ex-", and immediately go to the heart of the subject, in using the prefixes as a tool, as a mode of operation, either for thinking or for doing architecture. You oppose "trans -", "re-", to "de-", "dis-", "ex-". I would suggest that, in order to redefine, you have also to dismantle what you are going to define. In other words, certain processes happen in a sequence . While I will agree that in architecture the notion of "de-", "dis-", "ex-" may have lived most of its useful life, I would also say it was an absolutely indispensable moment of a trajectory. In order to redefine what architecture is, I need to dismantle what it has been and what it may constitute and then bring these pieces back together in a different order. Let me give you an example: If I say that architecture is not simply about façades or static volumes and therefore I want to introduce the idea of movement, I have to be analytical and identify what is static in architecture, so I can bring movement into the equation. So, in a first move, I say that, for example, architecture is dismantled into spaces, events and movement . Before you are synthetic, you may have to be analytical. So, the "re-" and the "trans-" tend to be synthetic, while the "de-", "dis-", "ex-" are analytical. Regarding the " trans-" and the "rotation", that is another story, and I am going to ask you one question now. To which extent do you think that "trans-" and the "rotation" are also reflective of today's globalism?

Liliana Gómez: It is an interesting question because it refers to the observation that those prefixes indicate a kind of movement or shift. And in this sense they can be understood against the background of the political and the wanted, that means programmatically. At least the "trans-" is quite programmatic. Maybe, in order to hide a bit what we called since fifteen years "globalization", having a negative connotation. Today we try to speak much more about "transnationalization", for example, which might be connoted more positively. I would also think that "trans-" indicates this movement in a almost metaphorical way, even if it doesn't reflect a descriptive or analytic dimension. Simultaneously, the prefix "trans-" points to an ambiguity - which is interesting enough about the "trans-" -in a similar way as the prefix "re-" does, because both refer to the movement of taking something which is somewhere else and bringing it back. This movement of bringing it back and bringing it in, indicates the ambiguity's logic and its practices.

Bernard Tschumi: As we are talking today, two days after the vote that took place in France about the European Community, and indeed, when you bring up the notion of "transnationality", you are simultaneously talking about one thing and its opposite, because transnationality crosses over, through entities, and at the same time, preserves some of the aspects of those entities. It is also a right to the difference, as globalism tries to erase all differences. And I think at the moment the fundamental discussion taking place right now, is the fact that you have to keep that notion of difference and bring it into the architectural work. Nobody can have the global modernist attitude of saying a certain kind of architecture can be exported unchanged everywhere. Immediately as you take an architectural object and you export it into a different context, it becomes something else: It is misread because misreading and translating go together, as you know "tradittore/translatore", "traitor/translator". The misreading is one dimension of it, but the other dimension which is crucial is that the context will contaminate the object, or in the other way around, the object will contaminate the context. I would oppose context and concept, saying that we find ourselves at a period where you either conceptualize context or contextualize concepts. In other words, concepts deal with differences but also with homogeneity, contexts only deal with differences. Let me tell you the reason why I bring this up: When I read your text about "trans-" and "rotation" [4], I realized that today's movement of ideas resembles the way once upon a time, germs and viruses stopped being local but became global as people started to travel around the world. Today, ideas move extremely fast, without even allowing time to know how and why they were generated. If you do not look into "de-", "dis-", "ex-", you risk immediately moving into the consumption of the synthetic.

Architecture in search for its "Grundbegriffe"

Liliana Gómez: It is not a secret, as you are reflecting it with your last book Concept vs. context vs. content, that you are working with the dynamic relationship between those different notions proposing a kind of method of "genealogy of concepts" [5]. And it is not a secret that the method is as well discussed as "Begriffsgeschichte" mainly in the field of history of science and social history [6]. As you say, architects often work quite efficiently and sometimes critically with "inventive categories" applied to specific economic and also political demands. I want to stress here that the method of "Begriffsgeschichte" which came up in a context of cultural transition where concepts lost their traditional dimension of significance, their concrete contexts and the certain terminological use because of the shifts in aesthetic uses in everyday life implying a crisis of cultural and aesthetic forms [7]. This is also sketched out by Michel Foucault in L'Archéologie du savoir where he observes the concepts' multiple theoretical "milieux" as a constitution process stressing the variations of the concept's identity [8]. In this sense, concept is also understood as operator. This process of "trans-lating" reminds me of what you also have been working, writing, thinking in your early works. Especially the "Begriffsgeschichte" stresses that concepts are memory, that means, as inter-modal all senses help to make form the concepts' memory. And lately in your work Index of Architecture [9], a kind of dictionary, a kind of search for definitions of architectural concepts in order to find out certain architectural principle concepts -"Grundbegriffe" - you transgress into a much more socio-cultural and political context. In this sense, concepts are used as memory and resistance. Apparently, your preoccupation about concepts reflects a kind of desire and motivation throughout your work. Maybe you can try to explain how it could so strongly involve your architectural thinking since the early works.

Bernard Tschumi: I like very much that you are going back to the German expression of "Begriff" and "Grundbegriff" - that difference: Concept and pre-concept, in a sense of earlier concept, over-concept, "Über"-concept. I will come back to that in a minute. If there is something that I have been trying to do in my own work all these years and I am still trying to do, is about the definition of what architecture is.
I think architecture by no means has a finite meaning. And architecture has been used by other disciplines in order to structure their own discourse. Often, architecture has been associated with the notion of stability, of solidity, of hierarchy - you know the expressions: "the foundations of society" or "the structure of the law", or "being the architect of a policy ". But people have looked at architecture as something that could give permanence to things which are impermanent. Of course, my contention is very different. I would say that architecture cannot be separated from what happens in it. And what happens in it is by definition transient, architecture is constantly destabilized, as destabilization needs stable surroundings to begin to operate. Hence, the concept of architecture, or the "Grund"-concept or the "base"-concept -I do not know how to translate it in English- has to do with... let me try to give you an example about "basic concept" versus "general concept" in architecture: The "plan libre" in French -you know the Le Corbusier's idea of the dialectic between horizontal movement and vertical columns-, this is a concept. I could say also the "spiral ramp" defining a central space at the Guggenheim in New York, this is a concept. But before that you may have "Grundbegriffe", namely the fact that architecture can be defined as space, event and movement. This is even before devising specific architectural concepts. What I have tried to do in our work is to use the projects we do in our office as a mode of exploration, trying to understand this redefinition of what architecture might be. Of course it is not easy, because generally people want architecture to be the representation of certainty, they want architecture to be identity branding. And they do not like when you tell them "yes", it is going to work for a while, but do not believe in it forever! There is something which I would call in French "le dictionnaire des idées reçues" - "the dictionary of the received ideas". Architects are filled with received ideas, architecture has to be good, nice to people, has to be solid, has to be beautiful and so on. No, that is not the way it is.

Beyond communication

Liliana Gómez: With the paradigm shift by popular culture or mass culture [10], you also mention the event-city -I mean the term "event city"- the role of images and the visual surface are radically changed [11]. Especially in architectural, urban strategies, the image will define a quite important efficiency versus the concept realizing a translation into a communicational sphere. This as background, you bring into play a tool to recontextualize the architectural practice what you once called "dismantle", "defamiliarization" and "technologies and practices of defamiliarization" [12], in order to break the classical architectural canon and to mark a different discourse's position towards maybe plurality and the culture of difference. But "defamiliarization" could also be understood as a break of communication - not affirming the logics of difference but negating communication implying a non-communication. And my question now is: How do you delimit this?

Bernard Tschumi: First of all, defamiliarization only happens for a time. Culture has a means to absorb unfamiliar objects. It is very rare that something can stay unfamiliar. There are very few examples of buildings that are hated from the moment they are built through many generations. There is a building in New York called Two Columbus Plaza, which was done in the Sixties by Edward Durell Stone. It has little round holes on its façades and shows possibly some Islamic influence. It is not necessarily a great building but a very interesting one. Everybody hates it, when in reality it raises a lot of remarkable questions about surface treatment, envelope versus structure etc (...).
It was never absorbed as opposed to, say, the Centrepoint Tower also build in the Sixties in London, and hated in the Seventies and Eighties, but now rehabilitated. So the defamiliarization is something which normally gets absorbed. The question of communication is trickier, because: What do you want to communicate? What do we communicate? And here, I feel uneasy about an architecture which tries to communicate. Does it communicate the power of the institution it represents? Does it communicate, like Disney-Architecture, fun and family? So, you see whenever architects have tried to use architecture as a form of communication, it has always been a carry-catcher of discourse, whether it was fascist, socialist or whatever. Ultimately, architecture has no meaning, it is only what you project on to it. A fascist building and a socialist building during a certain era looked the same. It was what society was, in which society it was in that was this projection. The same happens today. So, those readings, those perceptions are unbelievably transient. And therefore I do not necessarily think that it is the role of architecture to communicate. It may be the role of architecture indeed to be like a mirror. In other words to reflect what you are, in what society you are.

Architecture is cultural critique

Liliana Gómez: Going back again, to this early productive phase 1974-1978, to the Architectural Manifestoes [13]. There you explicitly outline a new sense of the political defining it through spatial and architectural logics. In this sense, you set a new frame for the relationship between the aesthetic and the political. Closely linked to the key-notion of use, you realize this relationship within your first built architecture Parc de la Villette [14] manifesting in both projects: Architecture is cultural critique. This is also what you have mentioned right now that it is not about communication. So could you outline if the critical notion of use intrinsically linked to the everyday life reflected a more "generational" context of those times? [15]. How do you describe that cultural critique is the intrinsic dimension of architecture? [16]

Bernard Tschumi: I like your question because it is touching upon a very current conversation at the moment - here on the East Coast in the world of ideas in some universities. And it is opposing two approaches to architecture, one which has been called "postcriticality", and another called "utopian realism". Let us first talk about why was there this movement calling itself "postcriticality". It is clear that the generation of some people like Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman and even Aldo Rossi were not considering architecture ideologies as a given, they were questioning a number of received ideas. They were being critical of the institution of architecture, but they were critical essentially in formal terms, in compositional terms. Then came another generation, which I would say has more to do with my generation, with Rem Koolhaas, with Coop Himmelblau and a few others who were trying to address cultural and programmatic issues as opposed to that previous generation which was working only with an intrinsic and formal nature of architecture as opposed to an extrinsic and social one. So in both cases, there was a critical attitude. Then, and I simplify a little bit, another generation arrived and some of its members, mostly in the United States, started to try to define themselves in terms of a "postcritical". In other words, something that would be linked to everyday operations of architecture, which would be opportunist in the best sense by taking advantage of circumstances - in order to work without trying to refer to social or even formal critique. Of course, I still belong to those who are having an interest for an articulation with culture and society. And that is why another dialogue is happening right now with others disputing "postcriticality" and like Reinhold Martin, proposing the notion of "utopian realism" which is based on ideas, but at the same time grounded in reality. You should talk to Reinhold Martin here in New York who has been very articulated about it. How can the architect be simultaneously the inventor of new models while inserting them in reality and not in tabula rasa? And I think that is indeed one of our challenges.

Liliana Gómez: Yes, there come in the figure of "translation" and the counter-figure of "rotating"...

Bernard Tschumi: Absolutely. Whenever someone talks about rotating, I always ask myself if it rotates on one plane or of it rotates as a spiral...

Liliana Gómez: It is about an outer-orbital figure... I want to come back to the metaphor of "tops of mast" ("Mastbaumspitze") which is evoked by Hannah Arendt when she thought a bit about Benjamin's biography and work [17]. Conceiving the metaphor "tops of mast" of both seeing clearly and overlooking as ambiguous, the own discourse's position might be unperceived and overdetermined, the "lieu" and "milieu" from where one is thinking always comes into play for a position's configuration. Observing your trajectories, you are defining a likely dominant discourse's position that means thinking from here, from New York, from the debate's center at Columbia University. It might ask for a certain translation when operating in different cultural and political contexts, as you do, for example, with your project Museo do Arte Contempôraneo in São Paulo [18], taking into account exactly the already fragmented and unstable conditions. With your recent book Event Cities 3, you formulate dynamics between the concepts' generic dimension, and the specific context proposing a third category "content" as a kind of strategy of translation realized by their relational combination. I want to remind here of the counter-figure of "rotating", especially the centrifugal condition "being-in-the-orbital" involves the risk of overlooking the peripheral logics because of the inclusion's position. So, for an architectural, urban project: How to include or exclude and trans-late different cultural contexts and logics, preventing a tendency of the context's homogenization, mediating between the specific and the generic? How to conceive the tool or strategy of contradiction in a cultural context of schizophrenic contradictions? [19]

Bernard Tschumi: With the "context of schizophrenic contradictions", you are touching on one of the most difficult things about architecture and what constitutes "good" architecture. "Good" architecture, generally, is understood, and even when I try to do it, as something which will be exclusive, and by exclusive, I mean underplaying or removing all the things that are not central to the concept. In other words, in order to make a statement you need to be able to say it in the clearest possible way. That is inevitably a reductive process. At the same time, if you want to be socially inclusive or contextually inclusive, I believe the only way to do it is in form of opposition, of tension and not in the form of a direct inclusion. So I can think of a discussion which is never taking place in architectural magazines, namely what is the relationship between the architectural object that they are presenting and what is next to it. I would love to have a special issue of a magazine in which they talk only about the interstices between what is new and what exists. The magazines even did not want to publish images with people in it - because this in-between is really the place of the inclusion, it is not the architecture itself, the architecture cannot be everything. I will give you an example which struck me at the time. When I finished the first buildings at the Parc de la Villette, all the magazines wanted publish it, and they always wanted to publish those red buildings as pieces of sculpture all alone, and never show the derelict buildings next to mine: A 19 th century market hall or a mid- 20 th century office tower. When in reality the project was really about that dialogue and those tensions. Because somehow, again, the "dictionary of received ideas of architecture" is about architects making shapes. So, how do you change the view of your own discipline? The paradox is that what justifies our existence is often actually just an appearance and pretence.

Stating the state of Architecture

Liliana Gómez: O.K. Last question: Recently and also almost programmatically with the theoretical counter-project: Questioning Ground Zero [20] where you expose the ambiguous logics of how the project Ground Zero in New York is conceived and put into realization, and with the project The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21 st century [21] where you directly propose a kind of architectural manifesto which is signed by several actors involved with architecture as a critique to the recent US American history when the war on Iraq started, you outline a critical position from where the figure of the architect as an intellectual and as a translator will be brought back into play - between cultural difference and different uses of space. You propose a change of architectural thinking and practice to a much more political dimension. About this state of architecture: Using manifestoes as a statement, could architecture be a lieu for a reclaiming? You bring in a kind of agenda for politics of translations: The architect as an intellectual. How to define his political roles or his roles in relation to the aesthetic today?

Bernard Tschumi: The Ground Zero phenomena was obsessive for so many of us here in New York, we saw it directly from our window few hundred meters away... but also, of course, because we are architects, and we like the city and suffer to see it brutalized. But it also forced us to try to understand how we operate. And it was interesting to see how ideological the architectural debate became. Any work that tried to be objective and analytical and comparative -by comparative, I mean making comparisons "trans-", analysis in history or nations- was pushed aside by pure ideology initiated by the politicians and even the media. And the project that was finally selected, was the most ideological project of them all. Architecture, instead of being a tool for thinking, became a tool for believing. And as I always thought that one of the most extraordinary things about architecture is that it is a way of thinking. We are confronted with the whole series of facts and information and we have to bring them together and give some coherence to them, even if they are incoherent. Alternatively, we at least have to stage incoherence in a comprehensible manner. This role of architecture as a form of thinking has been increasingly dismissed in certain political contexts. In the case of Ground Zero, ideology replaced thinking with religious patriotism, together with commercialism. Interestingly enough, at Ground Zero they never found a way to make them agree with one another. You would have thought that in America ideology and commercialism could work together. Not always. It is what one used to call the "internal contradictions of the system". What I tried to do with some of my students at Columbia was analytical, approaching it looking at different alternatives: What were the possible scenarios that one could envisage. It has nothing to do with form, it has nothing to do with what it looked like, but what were the potential options, starting programmatically and not formally, with their respective social, cultural and political implications.

Liliana Gómez: So that is then your strategy to deal with the modernity's ambiguity we are living in and the paradox of architecture that we are practicing as architects from the beginning of doing architecture.

Bernard Tschumi: Yes. Amusingly enough, one of the first articles I ever wrote was called the Paradox of Architecture and at the time I emphasized the difference between concept and experience [22]. I often have played this sort of dialectic, it is maybe my form of thinking, between conceptual mathematical precision and social constraints. The articulation in architecture between the objective and the subjective is one of the least understood dimension of what we do. Maybe, it is the effect that architecture deals with ideas but at the same time it also deals with material, and a mathematician generally does not deal with materiality. So, that is what makes architecture for me so fascinating.

Liliana Gómez: And there is laying then the dimension of cultural critique...

Bernard Tschumi: Yes.

Liliana Gómez: So, then we are coming back to "de-", "dis-", "ex-" where exactly the dismantling is present. We should ask for dismantling especially when questioning Ground Zero where we have to see that the ideological dimension is so strongly involved in order to find what you also called the search for an objective knowledge, maybe, and to formulate a critique.

Bernard Tschumi: Yes. And architecture can be a tool thought as an objective critique. But relatively few people use it. But is has that capability.

Liliana Gómez: O.K. Bernard Tschumi...

Bernard Tschumi: Thanks. You know, I quite liked how your questions have been articulated. They can be the beginning of a project, you can write a book on that....

Liliana Gómez: So, puntocero magazine, and especially me, we like to thank you for that conversation. [23]



notes:
[1] Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts, Academy Editions, London, 1994, p. 7.
[2] Bernard Tschumi, De-, Dis, Ex-, in: Architecture and Disjunction, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994, p. 225.
[3] editorial, in: puntocero magazine, No. 0, Sept.04/February 05, Berlin.
[4] The mentioned text about the "trans-" and "rotation" was the invitation for the interview sent to Bernard Tschumi as conceptual frame before the realization of this conversation.
[5] Bernard Tschumi, Event Cities 3. Concept vs. Context vs. Content , The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2004
[6] see Reinhart Koselleck, Werner Conze, Otto Brunner (ed.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1972. And, Karlheinz Barck (ed.), Ästhetische Grundbegriffe: historisches Wörterbuch in sieben Bänden, Stuttgart, Weimar, 2000.
[7] Karlheinz Barck, Ästhetik, Geschichte der Künste, Begriffsgeschichte. Zur Konzeption eines "Historischen Wörterbuchs ästhetischer Grundbegriffe" , in: Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Studien zu einem historischen Wörterbuch, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1990.
[8] Michel Foucault, Archéologie du Savoir, Paris, 1969.
[9] Bernard Tschumi (ed.), Index of Architecture, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2003.
[10] [keynote 1] In the work Advertisements for Architecture (1976/1977), Bernard Tschumi tried to translate the new architecture's conditions into the language of mass media and into the logics of the reproducible -like the form of magazine- using the advertisements as surface where image and architecture meet for a greater public. In this sense, he transformed precisely those new conditions into an aesthetic thinking, diagnosing from there a dominant visual perception of architecture, and simultaneously, advertising architecture's production as the process of architecture towards theoretical concepts.
[11] see Bernard Tschumi, Event-Cities (Praxis), The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994, and Bernard Tschumi, Spaces and Events (1984-1994), in: Architecture and Disjunction, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994,, and Bernard Tschumi, Manhattan Transcripts (1978), Architectural Design, Great Britain, 1981.
[12] Bernard Tschumi, Six Concepts (1991), in: Architecture and Disjunction, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994.
[13] Bernard Tschumi, Architectural Manifestoes I, (exhibition 8-28 February), Artist's Space, New York, April 1978, and Architectural Manifestoes II, Architectural Association, London, 1979.
[14] Bernard Tschumi Architects, Parc de la Villette, realized project at Paris, 1982-1997.
[15] [keynote 2] Especially the notion of desire, which Bernard Tschumi brought into play, inscribes itself into a context of the Collège de Sociologie around Georges Bataille - archeologically spoken - like the interest for the sacred, and the everyday life, and the notion of limit. In his early work Manhattan Transcripts (1976-1981), Bernard Tschumi developed a kind of ethnographic approach to urban spaces using a sui generis language of notation.
[16] [keynote 3] With the essays' collection Disjunctions (1975-1990), Bernard Tschumi mainly set a conceptual frame outlining series of methods to delimit architecture from just physical manifestation, explicitly he designed the lieu for a critique, in a much wider sense then other disciplines' practices do, like history of arts for example. Within these essays he did not only define an architecture's theoretical dimension, but he formulated his own "rules" which have been made visible lately by his architectural practice. In this sense, he created a kind of "toolbox" which demands an operation of translation towards architectural practice.
[17] Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, in: Men in Dark Times, Cape, London, 1970.
[18] see Bernard Tschumi, São Paulo, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2001, in: Event Cities 3. Concepts vs. Context vs. Content , The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2004.
[19] [keynote 4] Considering Bernard Tschumi's early works, especially notions like "paradox", "contradiction" and "transgression" characterize his preoccupation about architecture. I would like to stress this approach in order to define another modernity, by criticizing the classical rational philosophical thinking and introducing a kind of "irrational rationality". Taking into account the present context, i.e. fragmentation and dispersal fragments describing the new generic urban dimensions which put into question the modernity's paradigm in the traditional sense of progress, it is possible to observe that from there different strategies of dealing with that paradox in architecture might be open up. In this sense, his work could be read as a constant movement and positioning within the architecture's paradox and modernity's ambiguity. Bernard Tschumi once proposed: "celebrate fragmentation by celebrating the culture of differences, by accelerating and intensifying the loss of certainty, of center, of history", Six Concepts (1991), in: Architecture and Disjunction , The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994, p. 237.
[20] Bernard Tschumi, New York, Tri-Towers of Babel: Questioning Ground Zero, 2002, in: Event Cities 3. Concepts vs. Context vs. Content , The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2004.
[21] Bernard Tschumi, Irene Cheng (ed.), The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21 rst century, The Monacelli Press, New York, 2003.
[22] Bernard Tschumi, The Architectural Paradox (1975-1976), in: Architecture and Disjunction, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994.
[23] [keynote 5] After the conversation was finish, Bernard Tschumi added: "[...] 'for an architect the earth is flat'. And so I was discussing with people whether this was the 'Begriff' or the 'Grundbegriff'. In other words, that in architecture there are certain things which are crucial in terms of the development of the discipline itself. And this notion of the 'genealogy of concept' is very rarely talked about. Again, the approach these days is highly consumeristic, the way you work is apprehended, is purely on what it looks like, never on what it does. [...] But it is very much of the current conversation...".


Liliana Gómez studied architecture and philosophy and lives in Berlin. Actually she realizes a research project about discourses and models of theory of the Latin American Megacity in Berlin, Bogotá and São Paulo. She is editor of puntocero magazine.

2010年2月20日 星期六

機械人幫你畫人像



辨識系統轉化成輸出設備!

MIT Flyfire



MIT 將LED與微形直昇機結合,成為3D畫素,可以空中成像。
當然很好玩!很棒!
只是將它當成電腦螢幕與突現理論應用是截然不同的。
編排蒙那麗莎!OMG!

MIT確實很強,有些成就獨步全球!
不過有時候其實還有點笨,只強調技術實踐既有的想法,蠻死板的。
不過到是與實業界接合的蠻順暢的,大概就是其中的原因吧!
賺錢不能太本質,俗就有"利"!
(不要打我!)
不過萬丈高樓平地起,有很大的潛力!

消息來源:http://senseable.mit.edu/flyfire/#

bio-texture in food




下水餃吃時,把一顆之前用剩的洋蔥也一倂丟下鍋煮,因為已經有點發芽,再不吃應該就要拿去種了。
因為是煮餃子,洋蔥不像洋蔥蛋或羅宋湯之類的把洋蔥切成一片片,我整個半顆直接下鍋煮,心想呆會兒直接大口咬過癮點。
待起鍋後,想不到吃洋蔥的過程,還真是奇妙的旅程...

本想咬下口,但手中握著半顆洋蔥,逐漸被洋蔥的紋理吸引而忘記食慾(當然最有可能是因我煮的很沒吸引力),開始細看洋蔥的內部結構。其實蠻好玩的,外層都是一圈一圈的皮層被我逐一抽離開而進入我口中,正當我以同樣的邏輯一口接一口時,我看到了一個讓我再度讚嘆的景象,洋蔥從一圈圈的圓圈狀,逐步轉變成扭曲的雙曲面錐體形。更讓我驚奇的是最裡層竟是包裹著另外兩個小漩渦,而不是一個旋!天知道最裡層那一圈的洋蔥之後,到底是發生什麼事讓兩圈變成一圈!真神奇!好感動!這真是生物機制的鬼斧神工。

我想做設計若能做到這一丁點,死而無憾。快!快做!我腦裡有太多東西要做,哀!我的手趕不上!快點加油...

2010年2月18日 星期四

2010年2月15日 星期一

我看艋舺




看完了艋舺,覺得很納悶。這部電影為什麼會賣阿?

追根究底,應該是偶像與行銷,還有盲目的大眾吧!
Avatar會賣,很容易理解。3D觀看技術,充滿想像力的故事背景與劇情結構。

反觀艋舺,劇情蠻鬆散的,呈現的主題漂浮在眾多支線裡,又不能集體烘托出清楚的觀點。
有口號“意義是三小!我只聽過義氣!”,沒有人物內涵。
和尚的背叛與主人翁的執著之衝突點沒有適切劇情鋪陳,沒有說故事的煽動力,或者說感受力,會覺得劇情急轉直下,蠻怪的。
太子幫老大跟豆導演技太差,雖非主角,但卻是關鍵的角色,一個不像得天獨厚的壞小孩,一個不像外省掛的陰沉老大,看到他們會突然抽離劇情。
對照送行者,同樣有一個想要訴說的主題,但是劇情的設計與鋪陳會讓人感同身受。
同樣的海角七號會賣,也讓人很尷尬不知該高興還是感嘆。有票房、有旋風、有潮流,但實質內容缺陷很多。
不過有個新聞,可以試試看瞧瞧國片的希望。陳駿霖的【美】與【一頁台北】。

行銷行銷行銷!當所有事只剩下包裝的嘴與盲從的心,悲慘的處境大概只有經濟泡沫化後那些如同壁紙的股票才能搓破這些虛華的假象。台灣國片加油!但請你也幫幫忙!

2010年2月14日 星期日

【轉載】 拍電影,不該廉價到只用商業包裝

【前言】

在台灣中生代紀錄片導演中,以吳米森的作品,來討論後現代強烈視聽風格影響下的紀錄片新貌,我想是再適合不過的了。他的紀錄片帶有濃烈的美學特色和極富想像力的形式敍事,以「看起來不那麽真實、但實際上可能更貼近真實」的創作狀態,去呈現他心中所認知的紀錄電影。


【導演簡介】

1967年生於台北市。紐約視覺藝術學院 (School of Visual Arts, New York)、紐約市立大學(City University of New York)電影製作藝術學士(BFA)與媒體藝術製作研究所。1995年返台後曾任春暉Sun Movie電影台導演、星空傳媒Channel [V] 視覺創意部經理、廣告片製作公司導演。現任麥田電影有限公司編劇/導演,財團法人公共電視紀錄觀點專案導演,崑山科技大學媒體藝術研究所兼任助理教授及中華民國電影導演協會理事。

曾以《梵谷的耳朵》等片數度獲得金穗獎最佳影片與國際大獎。曾與鴻鴻、蕭菊貞等友人創辦「純十六影展」及「獨立夢工廠」網站。他的第一部電影《起毛球了》──以不到兩百萬元成本製作完成的16釐米影片,為台灣電影寫下驚人佳績,不但入選釜山國際影展競賽片、瑞典Goteberg等國際影展,並打破台灣獨立製作電影等於非商業的迷思。吳米森也拍攝許多紀錄影片,是公視紀錄觀點的常客。


問:現在有很多影像工作者,可能因為紀錄片的技術門檻比較低,需要的經費比較少,可以做為一個劇情片的跳板。您曾提到,你非常地排斥用其他的工作來養片這樣的行為?


吳米森:
因為我把它當成一份很嚴肅的工作(笑);一個賴以維生、終身要做的事情的時候,你發現有人來攪局,你就會覺得很無聊。It’s my life, not just a job!

你不會看到一個飛行員、一個機師去賣靈骨塔,他一定就是好好開他的飛機啊!那你拍電影就是好好拍電影,如果電影不賺錢,你就失業嘛!你失業的過程裡面你要怎麼樣去維持你基本的生活,就是你自己想辦法,我不贊成去賣魚丸或是先去玩股票然後再回來拍電影。

我覺得假如你把這當作一個嚴肅的工作、創作的工作,你就是要留在這裡去做,而不是做別的行業。至少是跟拍片有關係的,我不設限;至少把拍片這件事情當作一回事。也不是說你想玩票就不能來拍電影,當然每個人都有權利來拍電影;但是我覺得它背後的心態很重要。

我不覺得拍電影只是一個純粹的夢想而已,你幹嘛花那麼多錢來做夢呢?真是莫名奇妙。晚上作夢又便宜又好看又不花錢,又比電影精彩多了;你為什麼要花那麼多錢、那麼多生命來拍一部電影,來完成你所謂的夢?拍電影根本不應該叫圓夢,我不覺得那是夢。

事實上我已經失業很久了啊。我之前大部份的收入都是拍廣告的,MV我也大概已經七、八年沒拍了(笑),因為拍MV很像是拍婚紗照。俗稱CF的電視廣告,我也慢慢選擇性地拍,還是拍一些像新聞局的短片或我覺得傷害性比較不大的商業廣告。

不是我有多麼高的道德標準,而是當你在拍一些你不相信的東西的時候就是會很痛苦啊!否則那跟你幫希特勒拍片沒什麼不同啊!你要是覺得泡麵吃了會死人,你拍泡麵廣告你會覺得怪怪的,不是嗎?除非說你不知道,除非說你自己沒在吃泡麵、你相信抽菸很好,那就沒問題。所以當這個東西開始衝突,你慢慢就會有一個距離。

剛剛說失業很久是因為開拍《松鼠自殺事件》,很多案子就因而推掉,這些收入當然就少了,這一年也沒有在學校兼課了。我知道你們都很喜歡問導演說:你們都靠什麼維生的?(笑)我覺得這些都沒什麼好問的,因為大家都一樣。我覺得大家都處在一個失業狀態,所以沒什麼好講的(笑)。


問:像周美玲她會去拍那個像那個「年菜」的廣告,拍一支很輕鬆可以賺二十萬,像那種你不會排斥吧?因為我現在不太懂你對商業的界線在哪裡?


吳米森:
我拍啊。除非我知道那個年菜是塑膠做的。就是有些太可怕的東西,我不會想去拍啦。例如說某某政黨的政見廣告,我就不會想去拍。我覺得商業性沒什麼罪惡,什麼不是商業?電影也是商業行為啊!沒什麼罪惡。只是說,你在做的某些事情,跟你的想法或你的立場有違背的時候,我就覺得不應該去做。

紀錄片如果做商業院線發行當然也合理,只是要注意,紀錄片的市場操作模式不應該和劇情片一樣。如果開拍一部紀錄片之前就打算狠狠撈一筆,會出問題的。因為你要很多人花錢買票抱著爆米花來看你的紀錄片,這背後有潛在太多和紀錄片價值相違背的力量,比劇情片複雜多了。

之前有人幫民進黨做廣告、然後又幫國民黨,別人質疑他的時候,我記得他說,他只是販賣他的專業。也許是媒體斷章取義吧,可是我覺得拍政黨廣告或政治廣告,它跟拍口香糖廣告的嚴重性不一樣耶!我覺得背後有那種道德性跟說服性的東西,不應該廉價到什麼都用商業去包裝而已,太可笑了。

台灣人什麼最壞的都學美國,什麼都是錢錢錢;誰不愛錢,這是基本的,可是問題是,夠了沒有?不斷地消費、浪費,好像都理所當然。當然我們都是幫兇啦,我不曉得我會因為喝一杯咖啡剝削多少勞工;(笑)但是我覺得我們要有意識地去做這件事情。像我知道某國際家具連鎖店有嚴重剝削第三世界勞工的行為,我就再也不去那家買東西,諸如此類的。因為我們都是在現行的社會體制、全球體制之下,多多少少我們都是幫兇。

(本文摘自《愛恨情仇紀錄片》,同喜文化出版)

【2010-02-14 聯合新聞網】

2010年2月13日 星期六

三則生物機制新聞

今天是除夕,舊的一年將走,新的一年將來。大家恭喜!
前幾日看到新聞提到新年之際,這段時間中國境內出現人類的大規模的移動,BIG!類似生物遷徙。
順便附上今日生物機制新聞三則。

15歲睡美人!一睡兩星期
2010-02-13 中國時報 【諶悠文/綜合報導】
 英國十五歲少女露依莎.波爾(見下圖,摘自英國每日郵報網站)罹患罕見的嗜睡疾病「克萊列文症候群」(Kleine-Levin Syndrome,俗稱「睡美人病」),一睡可長達兩星期,如同睡美人般,但她的生活可不是童話故事。

 露依莎屢因熟睡不醒而缺課,也曾錯過學校考試,她甚至在跟家人一起度假時,整個星期也從頭睡到尾。

 家住英格蘭西南部沃森市的露依莎在二○○八年十月罹患流感後,開始出現這種症狀。據露依莎的母親描述,那陣子她感到很疲累,情況似乎沒好轉,開始在學校昏睡,且出現不合常理的行為,就像夢中囈語一樣。而且昏睡一周或十天後,她根本不記得發生過什麼事。

 同年十一月,露依莎到沃森綜合醫院就醫,醫師查不出問題,懷疑可能是荷爾蒙方面的毛病。那時露依莎一昏睡就十天,她一天沉睡廿二小時,而父母會趁叫醒她的時候,讓她進食並帶她如廁。

 露依莎的父親理查.波爾說:「除了睡覺,她什麼都不能做。她一熟睡,就好幾天不能上學。」

 去年三月,露依莎轉到聖喬治醫院,經診斷係罹患「克萊列文症候群」,病因則不明,而醫界認為可能與大腦中控制睡眠與食慾的「海馬體」功能障礙有關。這種反覆嗜睡症好發於男性,通常成年後會消失,目前也無明確的治療方法。


大象飆速 前腳跑 後腳走
2010-02-13 中國時報 【尹德瀚/綜合報導】
 大象在動物中堪稱笨重,每小時最高移動速度約十八公里,但大象在快速移動時到底是走還是跑?科學家透過實驗確認,大象快速移運動時係走、跑並行─前腳跑,後腳走。

 這項實驗由比利時魯汶大學的海格倫(Norman Heglund)教授主持,研究團隊訂做一種特殊跑道,能精確衡量大象每一步伐所施的力道,然後將這套設備運到泰國北部的「泰國象保育中心」(Thai Elephant Conservation Centre),讓大象在跑道進行運動實驗,並以高速攝影機拍攝大象每個移動步伐。

 研究團隊將測量資料和攝影畫面進行比對,得以估算大象移動時的潛能(potential energy)和動能(kinetic energy)。當動物行走時,每次抬腿會將肌肉的潛能轉為動能,每次腿著地又會將動能轉為潛能,在行走過程中這個能量轉換不斷重複,四條腿抬腿和著地交錯進行,使潛能和動能達到平衡。

 但動物奔跑時,四條腿會同時離地或著地,因此潛能和動能的轉換同步運行。然而大象比較特殊,當其運動速度加快時,科學家仔細觀察錄影帶後發現,大象是前腿奔跑,後腿仍在行走。


口吃 代謝基因變異
2010-02-13 中國時報 【黃文正/綜合報導】
 長久以來,口吃一直被認為與家族遺傳有關,不過,最新研究證實,與代謝失調有關的三個基因變異,可能也會影響一般人大腦部分功能,進而引發口吃。新發現可望開拓新療程。

 這項發表於《新英格蘭醫學期刊》(New England Journal of Medicine)的醫學報告,廣泛研究巴基斯坦、美英等國案例。據統計,全球成年人約有一%罹患口吃。有口吃的兒童若早期接後治療,多能矯正成功,若是成年人,僅能靠降低焦慮和調整呼吸以改善說話功能。

 如今,美國《國立失聰和其他溝通障礙研究所》(National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders)的研究團隊希望,他們的新發現能提供口吃的新療程。

 三個基因中,與嚴重代謝疾病有關的兩個基因「GNPTAB」和「GNPTG」,被腦細胞用來處理廢物。「GNPTAB」和「GNPTG」基因若變異,會導致「黏脂質症」(Mucolipidosis II),會讓細胞堆積廢物,造成關節、心肝等疾病與語言失調。

2010年2月8日 星期一

da issue9 out on shelves 夯9上架





夯第九期上架。主題是紙上建築。有收錄之前參加第一屆先進建築競圖獲得佳作的作品。urban rhizome 都市地下莖。是有關環保的集合住宅。

2010年2月1日 星期一

tenga 原型設計、包裝、銷售 ─ 太屌了







我必須承認一開始我搞不懂這是什麼,但是看了一陣子之後,我必須讚嘆日本人對於生活細節的觀察與專注,實在有過人之處。除此之外,從創意的發想、產品製作到包裝、行銷真的形成一個很縝密的系統。很佩服!

下次朋友生日可以送喔!

生物機械



由生物出發探尋其機制而衍生人造物的想法,一直在我的創作、實驗、教學扮演重要的角色。這次在元智帶的設計課,因為結合了機械系與藝創系,所以在技術方面獲得機械系同學的幫助,讓作品能更進一步朝我的理想前進。多謝這幾位同學的努力,他們是廖尹瑄、顧和容(藝創系),王竹安、呂南璋(機械系)!good job

2010年1月25日 星期一

iphone driving a car!







本來我並非很在意iphone,但是看到這些影片所介紹的效應,iphone引起我的好奇心,想一探究竟。不知道別的智慧型手機是否也能這麼搞?android的可以嗎?

half human half robot


load carrier from "alien"


control interface from "surrogates"


surrogate robot from "surrogates"


warrior robot from "avatar"





機械人的發展除了往人造生命外,人跟機械人的關係也愈發密切,機械人也可以是人體或意念的延伸。幾十年來在科幻小說、電影、動畫裡都一直勾勒類似的夢想,而這些夢想近十年內也在各地實驗室被開發出來。

2010年1月20日 星期三

bioloid robot kit



根據維基這是韓國製造商開發出來的機械人套件,真的只有一個字“屌!”

機械人的動作姿態可以透過動畫模式設定,完成一系列的choreography!想到幾乎十年前同樣的邏輯用maya做動畫,十年後是在規劃機械人的animation!對於科技的進步,設計面對新時代的回應有很深的感觸。

bioloid robot climbing up!!



這學期在元智帶了一個結合機械系與藝創系的設計課,將之前仿生的思考帶入機械人的技術,還不錯的一種組合,也是我一直嘗試的方向。機械人、人造生命等觀念在許多科幻電影推波助瀾之下,一般主流價值並不會排斥,主要在於創意如何進入實質的運作世界,這其中還有許多需要努力的地方。

曾經瀏覽看過一本書,書名忘了,是一本關於日本設計容易閱讀的軟書,它提到日本在八零年代很早就積極研發機械人,企圖引導世界走向一個取代人工的世界。同時期的美國發展網路世界,一個資訊無遠弗屆的遠景。回顧歷史,網路在這二三十年間壓倒性地將機械人工業排擠到次要的角色,網路銀行提供在家裡操控金融,比櫃檯小姐由機械人取代的便利性,確實讓日本的機械人夢想吃了悶虧。

不過時代改變,機械人科技的人造生命絕對是下一個人類文明的里程碑,會重新更替人類文明的思考軸象,勾勒下一個世界奇景。

2010年1月6日 星期三

就是愛動





前陣子看過使用iphone駕駛汽車,今天無意間在網上看到iphone與直昇機(鸚鵡)結合。還有前些時候mit medialab有位印度研究生發展的sixth sense將數位化的世界與現實世界融合一起,都讓人很興奮!

「讓建築動起來!」已經不能只是口號。let's go 4 it.