Talking heads

I've found these guys on the youtube recently. Actually they are two very noble men - Bryan Magee and Micheal Ayers.
And yes, I did watch the whole show, and I recommend it as a breakfast TV substitute. I feel it needs some kind of explanation. First of all it really is useful to dig out some basics about the key philosophers from time to time. The other thing is that I can't resist the charm of this style (that I suppose was a norm in the British TV in the 60's). The only other place I can find it right now is the Monty Python's Flying Circus, but it's so much more amusing when it's for real. And after all who said that it's always got to be sparkling, vivid, ridiculously colorful, intellectually reversing, childish and with no message whatsoever? Let them speak. Bon appetite!

here's the trailer (to see the next parts follow the links at the end of the video)

"art is one of the branches of mathematics, like any other science"

These are Rodchenko's word from 1921. Moreover through his works he seems to say that everything should be subjected to mathematics, as it is the ultimate law in the universe.
I envy him and find it very scary.
Once again I'll refer to childhood ideological trauma. I used to seek for the field that would be the one and only most important ever always. The plan was to find it and then become a specialist in its scope. That would be logical - as at the moment I know there is only one life, I shouldn't waste it for something not hyper-important. As a hard-working twelve-year-old I began to think. After a thorough analysis, I figured out that physics are the science I'm looking for. Law of physics rule the whole universe, so can anything be more powerfull than that?
Then I began to read and count and learn by heart all that I should know as the best living physicist ever. I don't remeber what came first - wheter I found out that I am not good enough to be the next Hawking already, or that it is not the most important field of life after all. What followed it was a yet another breakdown. Luckily there is no most important thing or idea whatsoever, and if there was, physics woudn't be it. I can find pleanty of examples where the laws of physics are absolutely ignored.
What would that have to do with the 20's in ZSRR?
The thing is that I have the impression that Rodchenko didn't give up. His world of number, shapes and colors was absolute, because it was subordinated by the absolute law of mathematics. The only thing he had to do is remove the element of emotional expression of personality. Well, everything becomes more harmonious when you get rid of the human factor. I look at the shades of his installations and I'm full of exaltation and anxiety.

For those who are in Barcelona at the moment, his works are in La Pedrera until 5 January 2009.

Down to earth

With my proneness to consider things in abstract terms I think it's healthy to make a paradigm shift from time to time, and listen to somebody who embeds ideas in material world. I've recently found a fragment of George Lakoff speech on how metaphors are actually physically created in the mind. Very convincing argument I must say:



It must also have something to do that middle-aged men with a beard, and clear calm witty speech, do seem trustworthy. I wonder how this metaphor was created...
This is a fragment of a longer lecture that Lakoff made on his book "The Political Mind". He explains the conceptual frames our brains work on and comments mechanisms of political views. Here's the recording of the whole session in New York. Worth taking into critical consideration:

it was a rainy sunday...