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monster_code [2023-02-10 13:52] – theunkarelsemonster_code [2023-08-25 06:51] (current) – [Monster Code] nik
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 +Humans as a species operate within a framework of symbolic representation that enables us to articulate ideas, share ideas, plan, design, make decisions, and reflect. We associate this with literacy, but for the majority of human evolution, we used very different frameworks, sometimes even the landscape itself to organise thought. All over the world cultures associated knowledge to features in the landscape; the Aboriginal songlines of Australia, the Native American pilgrimage trails, and the Neolithic causeways and henges of Europe. This is landscape as mind-palace. Bringing practices together from a wide range of sources I’ve been experimenting in my area of Amsterdam with these almost entirely forgotten ‘techniques’ of ‘applied animism'. It has transformed not just how I think, but also how I perceive and relate to my environment and my view of the human organism. 
 +
 ==== Monster Code ==== ==== Monster Code ====
  
-//Monster// refers to imagination. //Code// refers to encoding things geographically. The name is an adaptation of [[memory_code]] the title of the book by Lynne Kelley, on ways of encoding environmental, ethological and cultural knowledge and wisdom directly into the environment (or objects). Oral cultures tap into two immensely powerful forms of human memory for storing knowledge: +//Monster// refers to imagination. //Code// refers to encoding things geographically. The name is an adaptation of [[memory_code]] the title of the book by Lynne Kelley, on ways of encoding environmental, ethological and cultural knowledge and wisdom directly into the environment (or objects). Kelley identifies how orality taps into two immensely powerful forms of human memory for storing knowledge: 
   * monster: **our memory of character**: you may forget someones name, but you never struggle to remember someones personality. More than “thinking stones and mountains are alive” oral cultures they give their landscape character.   * monster: **our memory of character**: you may forget someones name, but you never struggle to remember someones personality. More than “thinking stones and mountains are alive” oral cultures they give their landscape character.
   * code: **our memory for geography**: we may not be great at remembering list, but we are amazingly good at remembering places. Imagine your house. Almost nobody struggles to remember where the living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet are, or even the furniture in those rooms. Modern memory champions still use this technique known as a memory-palace. Often the greek [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci|method of loci]] is pointed out as its origin, but that vastly underestimates how fundamental these principles were, stretching over tens of thousands of years of human history and across all continents.   * code: **our memory for geography**: we may not be great at remembering list, but we are amazingly good at remembering places. Imagine your house. Almost nobody struggles to remember where the living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet are, or even the furniture in those rooms. Modern memory champions still use this technique known as a memory-palace. Often the greek [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci|method of loci]] is pointed out as its origin, but that vastly underestimates how fundamental these principles were, stretching over tens of thousands of years of human history and across all continents.
      
 === current walks: === === current walks: ===
-  * timeline of US presidents encoded into shopping street (Jan Evertsenstraat, Amsterdam) +  * timeline of **US presidents** encoded into shopping street (Jan Evertsenstraat, Amsterdam) 
-  * timeline of hominids encoded into opposite side of shopping street (each block 1 million years) (Jan Evertsenstraat, Amsterdam) +  * timeline of **hominids** and **European Proboscidea** encoded into opposite side of shopping street (each block 1 million years) (Jan Evertsenstraat, Amsterdam) 
-  * mindpalace of damselflies (into branch structure of tree at FoAM's MidWest garden)+  * mindpalace of Dutch **damselflies** (into branch structure of tree at FoAM's MidWest garden)
  
 === structures: === === structures: ===
-  * areas: to encode important instances, moments, ideas, entities +  * **areas**: to encode important instances, moments, ideas, entities 
-  * places: to encode important instances, moments, ideas, entities +  * **places**: to encode important instances, moments, ideas, entities 
-  * entities (monsters): to encode important instances, moments, ideas +  * **entities** (monsters): help embody important details when there is little in terms of features available on location 
-  * lines (of places or areas): to encode a sequence of any kind +  * **lines** (of places or areas): to encode a sequence of any kind 
-  * cycles: anything that has no beginning or end, but does have an order +  * **cycles**: anything that has no beginning or end, but does have an order 
-  * branches: lines that fork, for example for related plant-families, each branch representing a set plants within the family+  * **branches**: lines that fork, for example for related plant-families, each branch representing a set plants within the family
   * combinations of the above   * combinations of the above
  
 === examples === === examples ===
-  * Aboriginal songlines of Australia+  * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline|Aboriginal songlines]] of Australia
   * Native American pilgrimage trails   * Native American pilgrimage trails
   * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceque_system|inca ceque]]   * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceque_system|inca ceque]]
   * ceremonial roads of the Pacific Islands   * ceremonial roads of the Pacific Islands
-  * neolithic causeways of Europe+  * neolithic causeways, processional avenues and henges of Europe
  
  
 [[monstercode_intro]] and [[memory_craft]] [[monstercode_intro]] and [[memory_craft]]
  
-group sessions:\\+=== group sessions: ===
 working in small groups, each working with a small 'data-set'\\ working in small groups, each working with a small 'data-set'\\
 Data sets: Data sets:
   * European elephants    * European elephants 
-  * 10 famous female pirates+  * 10 famous [[female pirates]]
   * 3 flooded villages   * 3 flooded villages
   * recipe for sandcookies   * recipe for sandcookies
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   * pg 127 the soul passes from one chariot to another and this gives creation order, it moves through a particular set of things created by the same ancestor in the Dreaming.   * pg 127 the soul passes from one chariot to another and this gives creation order, it moves through a particular set of things created by the same ancestor in the Dreaming.
  
 +=== Run like hell ===
 American poet Ruth Stone works as a farmer in rural Virginia. She describes the creation of a poem as something she feels and hears emanating from the landscape. A poem is like a thundering train of air coming towards her, shaking the earth beneath her feet. In that moment, there is only one thing left for her to do, and that is "//run like hell//." She then runs for home, chased by this poem, with the sole purpose of getting to a piece of paper and a pencil as quickly as possible, so that when the poem crashes through her, she can capture it on a piece of paper. We call this a moment of inspiration, when a revelation or new perception comes to us from the world of ideas. American poet Ruth Stone works as a farmer in rural Virginia. She describes the creation of a poem as something she feels and hears emanating from the landscape. A poem is like a thundering train of air coming towards her, shaking the earth beneath her feet. In that moment, there is only one thing left for her to do, and that is "//run like hell//." She then runs for home, chased by this poem, with the sole purpose of getting to a piece of paper and a pencil as quickly as possible, so that when the poem crashes through her, she can capture it on a piece of paper. We call this a moment of inspiration, when a revelation or new perception comes to us from the world of ideas.
  
 +=== How things shape the mind ===
 +Working with Renfrew, Malafouris developed an approach to the study of the human mind, past and present, known as **Material Engagement Theory** (MET) which has three central tenets:\\
 +
 +  * Cognition is extended and enacted because material forms are part of the mind and cognition is the interaction between brains, bodies, and material forms.
 +  * Materiality has agency because it is able to influence change in brains and behaviors.
 +  * Meaning (signification) emerges through the active engagement of material forms.
 +
 +These tenets provide an archaeological framework that "offers a new way of understanding the nature of cognition itself" and establishes "the archaeological record as an integral part of the thinking process."\\
 +\\
 +Important concepts developed by Malafouris include:\\
 +  * metaplasticity, the idea that the plastic human mind “is embedded and inextricably enfolded within a plastic” material culture
 +  * thinging, the idea that humans think with and through material things[6]
 +  * neuroarchaeology, an archaeology informed by neuroscience.: Renfrew and Malafouris first suggested and thus coined the term.
 +  * see also [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind_thesis|Extended Mind Theory]]
  
 ==== Hiking with Monsters at Amelisweerd 2021/2022 ==== ==== Hiking with Monsters at Amelisweerd 2021/2022 ====
  • monster_code.1676037138.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2023-02-10 13:52
  • by theunkarelse