I was working off of the comparison of people to computers, and how everyone is a different system and running different software. I was thinking maybe I would add a caption to everyone in the crowd, to show how people are "normal" and not at the same time.
The recycled photograph shown above prompted an interesting discussion, that led me, anyway, to talk about:
ReplyDeleteChristian Boltanski. I presume there are books in the library. Boltanski came up because of your re-use of the Times Square photograph.
W. Ross Ashby — When a machine breaks, it changes its mind. My own link is here, which points to Ashby's aphorisms and, once you're there, his notebooks, biographical information, and much more. Ashby was "a British pioneer in the fields of cybernetics and systems theory." See the News page at the Ashby site, for recent additions.
The Diderot passage on blindness is here.
More on W. Ross Ashby at wikipedia, including link to (pdf of) his An Introduction to Cybernetics (1957).
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded to add, that he started out as a clinical psychiatrist.
I wonder if "homeostatic processes within living organisms" — which are treated in that book — might be pertinent to questions around the concept of "normal" that interest you.
I also wonder if some drawing, experimental drawing/writing, perhaps derived from that text, might play a role in your process.
this question in your thesis statement stands out :
ReplyDeleteIs having a concept of normal helpful or harmful?
so what are norms about? what role does "difference," and perceptions of difference, play in systems, even in survival (of individuals, species). does the problem — if any — lie in "the concept of normal"? how might the "concept" of normal, or understandings of what is and is not normal, change over time and circumstance? the maintenance of homeostasis in systems (discussed earlier, in context of W. Ross Ashby and cybernetics) can't be all bad, can it?
is "normal" a "thing"? is "normal" a thing that requires constant testing, challenging, redefinition?
it may be that open-ended drawing, making, writing, can allow you to explore these questions (prompted by your own, quoted at the start), in a way that is free of conclusions that are all too ready to assert themselves prematurely, or definitively, in an area where "definition" may not really be helpful.