Alan N. Shapiro
media theory,
science fiction theory,
future design research
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The Best of All Possible Worlds: Modal Metaphysics and Possibilia, by James Shapiro
A brilliant intellectual whose work spanned many fields—mathematics, geometry, physics, etc., in addition to his philosophical contributions—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz remains best known for his rather unique version of “theodicy.” This term refers to an argument defending the benevolence of God and His methods, despite the worldly suffering and injustice that has and always will occur.
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Media theory: beyond the dualities of form and content, critical and enthusiastic, real and fake, by Alan N. Shapiro
On January 26, 2012, I gave a lecture in the Speakers’ Series of the Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. My topic was: “Media theory: beyond the dualities of form and content, critical and enthusiastic, real and fake.”
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Introduction to Polona Tratnik, by Anja Wiesinger
In a biological sense, being part of the human skin, hair regulates the body temperature. It is home to millions of bacteria that interchange with the environment and help build the body’s resistance to harmful organisms. Hair is not able to grow or continue to live when departed from the human body and cut off…
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From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti: Artworks of Nicola Toffolini (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)
Nicola Toffolini works on the nature-technology marriage by elaborating singular ecosystems enclosed in glass and aluminium cases of marked formal elegance. Inside plants have been placed which, in order to live, depend on sophisticated electronic mechanisms, which visitors operate from the outside interactively.
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Impressionist Paintings by Florence Morrison, Installment 3
My mother was a realist and slightly impressionist painter of natural and nautical scenes who paradoxically studied with the abstract master Mark Rothko.
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Anticipating the Future through Knowledge of the Fiction in Social Reality, by Alan N. Shapiro
I was the keynote speaker at the conference on “Das Wissen der Zukunft” (“Knowledge of the Future”) that took place at the University of Vienna on November 4-5, 2011.
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The Jig She Saw: Reflections on Creating Relational Encounters in Participatory Theatre, by Regan O’Brien
I will be reflecting on the theories and practice of creating and performing The Jig She Saw: Reflections on You, a small scale immersive, interactive performance installation. The project is rooted in Relational Aesthetics as discussed by Erin Manning in Relationscapes, and in social choreography in relation to William Forsythe’s research on the ‘choreographic object’.
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Julian, California: The Museum of Reality
Driving up and down the southern California coast between Los Angeles and the Mexican border, every town looked the same. Most everywhere in America it is like this. “Reality” has been reduced to a cloned instantiation from a formula: replicated instances of the same shopping malls, supermarkets, mega-stores, and chain restaurants everywhere you go.
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On the trail of Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek in the American Desert
OBJECTS IN THIS MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. We understand Baudrillard to be a unique thinker – perhaps one of the half-dozen greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. America is a milestone work of social commentary about the USA by a French author, in the same tradition as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
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General Patton Memorial Museum
General Patton Memorial Museum 62-510 Chiriaco Road, Chiriaco Summit, California 92201 “A Military History Museum With Exhibits from World War I through the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars And our Tank Yard with Armored Vehicles from World War II through Vietnam.”
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Authentic Existence in Heidegger’s “Being and Time”
In his excellent essay on Heidegger’s Being and Time, my nephew James Shapiro argues (among other things) that Heidegger gives little content to or explanation of what he means by authentic being. Jamie said that he was influenced in formulating this view by one of his philosophy professors at Boston University, Daniel Dahlstrom.
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On Heidegger’s “Being and Time”, by James Shapiro
Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time is a work primarily concerned with the explication and understanding of the specific brand of existence and consciousness that is unique to man—or perhaps stated more succinctly, what it means to be a human being. This unique human existence Heidegger calls Dasein.
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Pietro Mussini: A habitat of an interlocked nature, by Franco Torriani
Pietro Mussini: A habitat of an interlocked nature, by Franco Torriani (published in book form by Edizioni Diabasis, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2010) (English translation by Julian Delens) How far can an artistic practice really produce, and place in a given space and time, place-unrelated objects (in respect to a given place), it’s an underlaying matter…
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Cactus League Baseball: San Francisco Giants vs. Oakland Athletics
It was early March on planet Earth. In any of the other places where I have hung out during my apparently long yet in fact rather brief life so far as coder and Richard Daystrom wannabe – Frankfurt, Berlin, New York, Boston, Ithaca, Bologna, Zurich – it would be freezing cold in winter.
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