memes, memeplexes and neurath’s boat

Via the dazzlingly peripatetic Nag on the Lake, comes a look at ISOTYPEs—that is International System of Typographic Picture Education, which sounds so much better than the term infographic, which shall be evermore banished.
I am grateful for learning about these brilliant, vintage diagrams as I had previously discovered the sleek and singular icon libraries of Gert Arntz but had not realised that there was a direct link and application in the educational materials of philosopher Otto Neurath of the Vienna Circle. Like the Ship of Theseus, Neurath’s boat is a paradox to compel one to confront his or her foundational beliefs by dissecting so-called viral memes—those tenants we might identify with but which are recursive and self-serving. Members of the Vienna Circle, formed in the aftermath of World War I, encouraged life-long learning and rigorous self-examination.

gilded placemat

Although not a surpassingly great technological achievement nor a particularly indemnifying marketing ploy (and I’ll confess I’d never patronise this establishment no matter what the gimmick or give-away), I could not get this taut out of my head—these paper-thin keyboard dining tray inserts so guests can avoid getting grease and crumbs (from a restaurant that built its reputation in part for being messy and lugubrious) on their smart phones. I suppose there’s a little bit of harmless fun to be had here—like with selfie-sombreros and display-cases for one’s more artfully arranged meals, but it does bother me that we’re so ready to admit that we can’t put down our phones even at the table and cannot fix our attention to what’s right in front of us. What do you think? Do we need to be encouraged or enabled any more than we already are?

dozy doats oder extra-sensory

Going on a stroll in two separate instalments, I explored the nearby borough of Dotzheim. This sizable village nestled in a valley surrounded by the rising slopes of the Taunus mountains probably predates, as a settlement, the migration of the Celtic peoples into Germany and after the dissolution of Roman authority, the Merovingian Franks filled the power-vacuum.
The village just west of Wiesbaden probably got its name (and crest, a “T”) owing to a count of the court of King Dagobert I called Tuzzo, but the designation Dotzheim was to become an important aristocratic line under the rule of the House of Nassau in its own right and the cast-iron mascots, Dotzi, hung on many of the older buildings at the town centre.
A bit further on (which is why I needed to split up my walk—plus it started to rain) one encounters Schloss Freudenberg—which, for being only built in the early 1900s, has a pretty extensive and complex history. It was completed in 1903 but the youngest castle in Germany dates from 1908, and is included in this collection.  The mansion was commissioned by a Scottish post-impressionist painter and his wife but they only lived there a few years—to be later appropriated as a home for expectant mothers and young children of the Lebensborn programme.
During the course of the war, a garrison was built up on the surrounding gardens near this railhead and was afterwards occupied by the US forces. Freudenberg became an officers’ club and casino until 1973 when it abandoned and fell in disrepair.
The castle was saved from ruin by a group of adherents to the philosophy of Hugo Kükelhaus, who turned the estate into playground for the senses. Kükelhaus along with his promoted exercising ones perceptions to the fullest in order to hone ones imagination and understanding of the world and eschewed the sanitary, inhuman architecture and design that confined and exhausts by removing those things we are made to feel.

Several permanent installations, called experience stations (Erfahrungsfelder), are on display.
The ongoing renovation project itself is also an extension of Kükelhaus’ beliefs and is therapeutically defined as the combination of healing and art.  There is the further objective of educating visitors in abstractions that are independent of the powers of perception (by cultivating and refining one’s physical senses as much as possible) so that they might apprehend what’s just beyond—like dignity and equality.
As well as being the home and headquarters of Hugo Kükelhaus’ movement, Schloss Freundenberg hosts regular seminars and events for kindred organisations and schools of thought.  By rushing through I suppose that I was completely missing the point by not playing and discovering fully, but when there is more time, I certainly plan to return and experience all the textures and trapezes. 

five-by-five

finger lickin’: one casual dining franchise introduces Bluetooth keyboard tray inserts to keep cellular phones less greasy
swissmade 2069: a tribute to the lesser-known work of HR Giger

becomes a flotation device: airline safety video featuring every meme and personality from the internet

crowd-sourced: Swedish Hemnet dream home designed by internet traffic

1up: charity arcade games

room 237

Der Spiegel (leiderlich nur auf Deutsch) has a nice photo-album tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of horror, The Shining, on the occasion of its thirty-fifth anniversary. The captions for these iconic stills need no translation but do have some interesting trivia—like that Jack Nicholson axed through sixty doors before the director was satisfied with the shot or the snow from the garden labyrinth ending was recycled from a neighbouring film production going on the same time, Kubrick gladly taking the stage-snow after the rebellion fled Hoth.

five-by-five

bellum omnium contra omnes: sobering graphic that charts percentages of US lives spent under war and peace

take-away: interesting look at the history of 出前一丁—the culture of Japanese food delivery

nocturne: darker sequel to E.T. that was never made

doctor zaias: simian newsletter back-issues

parallax view: China’s space aspirations to reach the far side of the moon

time-lapse or moraines and drumlins

I thought that this demonstration of mining images on the internet for photographic documentation of climate change was rather clever and compelling—and all the more poignant as the time-lapse featured was a place that H and I visited ourselves, back in July of 2012. I wonder if any of the pictures we took on our hike through the Briksdalen towards the Briksdalbreen there icy blue in the distance made the cut.

fort morgan or unredoubtable

While visiting Gulf Shores during our Spring Break, we drove up the coast to tour the colossal installation that defended the mouth of Mobile Bay.
The pentagon layout of Fort Morgan with its high masonry ramparts was really impressive and surprising, evoking images of the Vauban fortifications we’ve encountered along French beaches.
This megalithic discovery—which although seeming perfectly in place and familiar was still very unexpected for us in its cavernous extent and location, there, in Alabama—was constructed originally to bolster seaboard defences in the aftermath of the War of 1812 (not the striking back of the British Empire as usually portrayed but the North American theatre of the much broader Napoleonic crisis) in about twenty years, making extensive use of slave-labour.
Soon the bastion constituted a hotly contested strategic nexus that guarded the waterways and thus the supply-lines of the Confederate armies and the launching pad for attempts to break the Union sea blockade during the US Civil War.
This project was one of the first major endeavours of the US Army Corps of Engineers, buttressing existing earthen redoubts, temporary forts, along navigable rivers.  The term national redoubt refers to an area, ideally some place providing protection, where retreating or defeated armies can withdraw and regroup.
This notion of For- tress Amer- ica also con- vokes a metaphorical turning-inward and the US only, unlike many other countries, had to take a last-stand and make a temporary capitol under duress once.
The fort suffered extensive damage but was not long neglected before the citadel was reinforced and batteries added for the conflicts of Filipino and Spanish-American Wars.  Fort Morgan was again activated for the twentieth century’s hostilities but did not again experience the tempo of action it saw during the Civil War and is today preserved as a national park.