Tubers and Collossus

Yea the title is a hidden pun clever init.

So the third reading (to which this blog entry is LATE I hope i don't do that again), is about rhizomes interesting huh. well guess what that was probably the most messed up piece of litrature I've ever read in my short 20 going on 21 year life, written 7 years before I was even born two french philosophers/psychologists decided to go crazy on paper, it was in the 80s so i doubt they were high on acid, but the were french maybe that was the reason.

Anyhoo what I got out of that piece of litrature was that nature works like roots (not the tv show) while books (I'm assuming an analogy to human knowledge) work in a structured rigid way. And with books supposedly mirrors to nature, they're not doing a great job of that then. it's really simple when you dumb it down but how can you be a philosophiser if you don't use big words and sound holier-than-thou or rather smarter-than-thou because from what I understood they don't believe in holy (or ultima for that matter {inside joke don't dwadle on it you won't get it}). They start by explaining that nature and so does human knowledge are like trees and roots that spread out and expand to further and further reaches of capacities (hah big words, I am such a hypocryt). And go on explaining the importance of mulitplicity (not tha micheal keaton movie although that was awesome) in knowledge and that without multiplicity knowledge wouldn't be that much knowledgefiable (if I can use that as a word). and they explain that roots are a good example of multiplicity while a better example of that would be rhizomes (aka vegetables that grow out of their roots like tubers (a fancy word for potatoes) and carrots). how they went on and explained that was pretty interesting.

They used MATH, and me being and engineer by day artist by night (when I'm not out watching movies or playing video games) I told myself hey those are number you must understand this theory or else you'll be a failure and lo and behold I actually did (at least I think I did because no one refuted my explanation yet). you see the problem with multiplicity is that you can't have 1 so all multiples are (n-1) meaning that the only way for something to be a multiple is that for it to be greater than one (and they call that the only way to include one in multiplicity) and that's how it is for roots, you can never have a single root, you have to have a lot that branch out and spread for the tree to thrive. but with tubers the tree itself is a root so to speak, so no matter how many roots that tree has there will always be 1 hence it's (n+1) that one is the tuber itself hence multiplicity is more accessible when your core itself is part of it (at least that's what I got out of it), which is a really cool analogy of human thought.

now your defintely wondering how that fits into digital art well simple look again at my cleverly crafted title, we covered the tubers right what's with the collossus (well it kinda sounds like tubercolosis right ? well it's not just that). The collossus is our good 'ol interweb, or as people call it "that thing Al Gore invented", but really that many sided, many faced, many legged, well... many everything collossus that resides in each and everyone of us' homes is the perfect example of a blue ribbon quality tuber, it's roots spread further than fern gully and it's core massiveness can make all the developing countries developed (if it was a real potato) it spreads out to the corners of the earth (hah good luck finding that corner internet) and makes the world the small village we live in now. with the viral properties and things linking up to each other no wonder one gets youtube ADD, or The dreaded Facebookery. it is just a massive tuber with roots that are even more massive and branched, so really even though those two french dudes Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (also refrenced as D&G and yet not related to fashion although french and have the right letter combination). writing a philosophy piece analyzing human thought, infact analyzed the beast that runs our modern 21st century lives (don't believe me try cutting off the internet from a whole country for a couple of days see what happens, no ATMs no Airports, no Anything, and that actually happened last wednsday in egypt check that shit out I'm not kidding) and their analysis was right on the metaphorical money.

so really even though it was a messed up read with an introduction talking about "anal sunlight" it really opens your mind to the potato possibilities of our brain (And I don't feel like making a Mr.potatohead joke). so there that's the word on this piece.

http://www.manovich.net/vis242_winter_2006/New%20Media%20Reader%20all/27-deleuze-03.pdf