From 8c307b17f853110c74753a6319202cc806c39933 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Silvio Rhatto <rhatto@riseup.net> Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2018 09:45:19 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] Books: Maciunas Learning Machines --- .../maciunas-learning-machines.md | 101 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 101 insertions(+) create mode 100644 books/tecnopolitica/maciunas-learning-machines.md diff --git a/books/tecnopolitica/maciunas-learning-machines.md b/books/tecnopolitica/maciunas-learning-machines.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7dc7cfb --- /dev/null +++ b/books/tecnopolitica/maciunas-learning-machines.md @@ -0,0 +1,101 @@ +[[!meta title="Maciunas Learning Machines"]] + +## Snippets + + The declared aim was “to learn as if mechanically and without having to think + too much.†38 + + [...] + + The idea of the interactive user was born. George Maciunas is one of them. + + [...] + + This interest in graphic forms of communi- cation can in turn be traced back to + Maciunas’ profound aversion to books. Instead of spending hours of his time + reading, he preferred to learn by taking in as much informa- tion as possible + at a glance. This explains his fascination with diagrams, charts, maps, tables, + systems of coordinates, and graphs. The charting of history, moreover, was but + one facet of the visual information which was to preoccupy him throughout his + life, not just as an architect, but as a knowledge worker. + + [...] + + Thus the Atlas of Russian History ranks among those forms of knowledge-driven + visualization systems that can be grouped together under the term “operative + pictoriality.†51 + + One key feature of “operative pictoriality†is the interaction on a map of the + visual and the discursive. The latter takes the form of keywords used to + chronicle historical events—trans- formative processes of which each map can + provide no more than a snapshot showing them at a certain point in time, or at + a particular stage in their unfolding. The Atlas of Russian His- tory is + remarkable for another quality as well, namely in the way it uses recurring + terminol- ogy. As a kind of hyperlink, this terminology facilitates navigation + through the Atlas, which after all works on the principle of anticipation. + + [...] + + The cartography ends more or less abruptly in the late nineteenth century. The + heroic phase of Soviet history that was to follow in the early twentieth + century was too complex to be contained, let alone mapped, in the traditional + atlas format. To a certain extent, therefore, Maciunas can be said to have + reached the limits of what the charting and mapping of his- tory could achieve. + The limit he had reached was systemic, of the kind Gregory Bateson examined in + his book Mind and Nature (1979): “All description, explanation, or representa- + tion is necessarily in some sense a mapping of derivatives from the phenomena + to be de- scribed onto some surface or matrix or system of coordinates. In the + case of an actual map, the receiving matrix is commonly a flat sheet of paper + of finite extent, and difficulties occur when that which is to be mapped is too + big or, for example, spherical. . . . Every receiving matrix,†Bateson + concluded, “will have its formal characteristics which will in principle be + distortive of the phenomena to be mapped onto it.†59 + + [...] + + The distortion of phenomena in the Atlas of Russian History consisted in its + gross simplifica- tion of complex geohistorical processes as factographic + fallout. To be able to capture that “hot†phase in a chronology which, owing to + the large number of fast-moving events that have to be taken into account, has + the character of “differential elementsâ€â€”to borrow Claude Lévi-Strauss’ + definition for the study of anthropology—Maciunas had no choice but to change + his mode of presentation. He therefore switched from two-dimensional mapping of + history to the historiogram, which could be expanded in three dimensions + without any major structural changes and thus lent itself more readily to the + ever greater factual density Maciunas now grappled with. + + [...] + + Usually, geographical maps are static representations. The snapshots of history + they pro- vide have no room for the dynamic dimension of historical processes. + The arrows Maciunas used in the Atlas of Russian History are an attempt to + restore a sense of dynamism. The vectors are necessary to the mental animation + of systems, and signify large-scale move- ments such as migrations or + invasions. Yet they can only ever mark out the general direc- tion, never the + exact route taken. It is the arrows, moreover, which lend the charts the dia- + grammatic character that appeals so strongly to non-cartographers such as + Maciunas. The rudimentary nature of the cartographic information provided on + the various sheets also belongs in this category. Because Maciunas dispenses + with a frame, a grid, and a specifica- tion of scale, the representational + space of his history charts tends to resemble pictures rather than maps. 61 + + [...] + + The history of the empire was to inform maps of the empire. The political + function of the atlas of history was thus very similar to that of history + painting. Its purpose was not so much to deliver comfort and relief—which was + what history paintings had to do—as to nurture historical awareness. Such + awareness as the basis for social development, however, was to be found only at + the top of the learning curve that was preceded and facilitated by the + positivistic acquisition of facts. To para- phrase Jürgen Habermas, social + evolution is driven by changes in the knowledge poten- tial. 69 The historical + sources show a milieu which believed in the reformation—meaning the + improvement—of the world by education. Maciunas’ maps are of a piece with this + en- lightenment ideology. As an imaginative matrix, they do not deliver an + abstract model of history, but rather generate their own history—one whose + narrative strategies elude any direct empirical verification. This metahistory + is ideologically motivated. As the factual density increases, so the process of + historical change picks up speed, culminating in the Russian Revolution. + Maciunas’ mapping project was focused on that one event, an event which + exemplifies most vividly the feasibility of history, which in turn allows for + the idea that society can indeed be modeled. -- GitLab