what’s the frequency kenneth?

Tom Stafford of Mind Hacks has a quite good explanation of what’s known as the spatial frequency effect, a heuristic tool for gauging visual perception.
The gradient of stimuli is measured against the contrast between light and dark and the angle, the point of view. As an illusion or illustration that creates itself, the phenomenon might be best imparted as the trick that superimposes a couple of iconic images of Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe whose hybrid, composite picture shifts from one to another depending on the viewer’s distance.  Lean forward, lean back to experience it to the fullest.  I wonder how this interaction between the seer and the seen might be manifested in other ways.

gaspillage alimentaire

US National Public Radio’s European correspondent Eleanor Beardsley reports on some refreshingly positive follow-up on the 2016 legislation that outlaws systemic food waste in France—leveraging hefty fines against grocery stores that throw away edible food.
Without taking into account the negative impacts of agriculture to include indignity to animals, habitat loss, pesticide and intensive water-use, humans throw away about a third of what’s raised or grown, with developed nations disposing of the majority of their food at the final stage when the most time and effort has been invested in it. Not only are struggling families benefited from higher quality and quantity donations to food-banks and other charities, supply-chain-management is also improved with the elimination of the stipulation that suppliers deliver amounts at fixed thresholds and obligating merchants to buy more than they can sell in a timely factor, reducing emissions due not only to surplus transportation but also for food-waste kept from land-fills (as food bio-degrades, it produces methane) and not artificially subsidies over-production. On a purely administrative note, this post is PfRC’s five-thousandth (cinq millième).

homespun

The Atlantic takes a preview at what sounds like a pretty engrossing analysis of the evolution and subsequent associations we've bestowed on the concept of craft.  

Craeft by archaeologist and television personality Alexander Langlands explores how in spirit and practise the term, synonymous with manual labour, has stripped down of much of its former esteem of refinement, skill and finished that were co-opted by manufactured goods—though this too shares the same sense of being hand-made. When the Industrial Revolution brought in masses from the countryside, social theorists encouraged workers take up crafts, constructive hobbies, in their off-duty hours out of an abundance of caution that day-labourers and shift-workers had too much unstructured leisure time—a modern, occupational affliction that comes out of automation and mass-production. Without the need to learn a technical skill to maintain hearth and home and with the associated respect and deference lost, the idea of plying one’s craft was disdained as something frivolous and as a prestige project. Meanwhile crafts have become more like kits to be assembled rather than reflecting on the material and means of making and using things.

full fathom five

Our morning mediations come courtesy of Fancy Notions with a calm but catchy introduction to the cinematography and scoring of a pioneering New Zealander named Len Lye. Combining experimental film with kinetic sculpture and travelling widely through the South Pacific, Lye became a student of Aboriginal cultures and was one of the first European settlers (pākehā is the Māori term for such an outsider) to appreciate and incorporate their art.

This highlight reel from his 1936 animated short “Rainbow Dance” was filmed in Gasparcolor—one of the forerunners along with Dufaycolor, before Technicolor became the industry standard. You can find a wealth of his other works (including the above titled musical composition, which might have a familiar ring to it) curated by the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre, your local library or via your trusty search engines.