In this presentation, I outline and reposition the entangled histories of certain objects, technologies, and rhetoric, to show how consumption and consumer identity are reflected in their combination and that each category is never far from the other two.

A narrated iteration of a recent presentation. I consider this an interim version as I…[Read more]

Dr Farra “Our models are out reality. But our models are not reality!” That coincides with the immortal philosopher Kant who argue we do not perceive the real world – but “representations” of the real world. Similarly, Bargh – from unconscious research – emphasizes mental categories and norms/stereotypes. Jung emphasizes symbols – which he argues…[Read more]

According to the medical tradition, the temperament of bodies came from the balance of their primary qualities – hot, cold, dry, and moist. However, physicians associated additional sensory properties with temperament in the field of pharmacology. These sensations included taste, color, and odor, which allow an appraisal of the constitution and a…[Read more]

How were the concepts of the observer and user in architecture and urban planning transformed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? Marianna Charitonidou explores how the mutations of the means of representation in architecture and urban planning relate to the significance of city’s inhabitants. She investigates Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van…[Read more]

Departing from the intention to explore Frank Gehry’s drawings serving to their own designer to grasp ideas during the process of their genesis, the article examines Frank Gehry’s concern about the revelation of the first gestural drawings and all the sketches and working models concerning the evolution of his projects, and his intention to cap…[Read more]

From 40 years of experience it is clear that spirituality has become entangled in abstractions: powers, perfection, supernatural, unreal, limitless knowledge, crystal ball perceptions, etc.
Dr Stephen Farra agreed with that – and went one better. Dr Farra stated “Our models are out reality. But our models are not reality. That coincides with the…[Read more]

This article examines the conflicting representations of plasticity and epigenetics in the work of philosopher Catherine Malabou and evolutionary theorists Mary Jane West-Eberhard and Eva Jablonka. Malabou effaces the unsettled debates within the life sciences in order to speak of a new biological ‘paradigm’ and to attribute values of novelty or…[Read more]

I co-edited this collection of essays about color order and color ordering systems based on a workshop held at TU-Berlin in 2020.
https://bit.ly/Ordering_Colours

The early modern use of vegetal terms to explain the origin and growth of ores was widespread in mining industry, alchemy, and natural philosophy. In the writings of authors from many different backgrounds, mineral veins were often described as ‘trees’ which moved upwards, bore fruits, and underwent a life cycle. Accordingly, the existence in ore…[Read more]

From antiquity, Galenic physicians extensively discussed the active powers of simple and compound drugs. In their views, simple drugs, that is, single ingredients, acted according to their material qualities and the properties of their substance. As for compound drugs, their efficacy resulted from the mutual interaction of their ingredients and…[Read more]

This essay, which expands on my talk at the Colors and Cultures / Couleurs et Cultures conference in April 2021, charts the history and my plans for a broad exploration of Turkey red as both subject and as object in global history. In it, I move between the personal—the compulsions that led me to undertake this series of studies, and which c…[Read more]

La théorie du chaos n’est pas aussi complexe qu’on le prétend souvent Comme l’observe Robert Juliano, le principe sous-jacent est que “dans le caractère aléatoire apparent des systèmes complexes chaotiques, il existe des modèles sous-jacents, des interconnexions, des boucles de rétroaction constantes, la répétition, l’auto-similarité , fractales…[Read more]

Chaos theory is not as complex as it si often made out to be As Robert Juliano observes, the underlying principle is that “within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization.”

“Chaos has been for…[Read more]

Ang pagtanggi na ang “pagkamakasarili” ay ang laganap na pamantayan at mayroon lamang “limitadong mga anyo ng altruismo” Upang magsimula, idiin ko na, “Kahit na ang bakterya ay mas matagumpay sa pagpaparami sa presensya ng iba sa kanilang sariling mga species.” Ang ibig kong sabihin ay may connectivity ang bacteria para sa Diyos!
1. Sa isang araw…[Read more]

The Four Primary Drives: The Need for Meaning, the Need to Belong, the Need for Ideology, and the Spiritual Drive
Religious beliefs are primarily created and generated by four very basic and fundamental “Needs” or “Drives.” From a rather practical and pragmatic approach, in general, religions could be said to involve meaning or purpose, others…[Read more]

The Academic Materialist driven Extreme Escapism of Materialist Psychologists
and Jung’s Accurate “Mar’s Prophecy” – so Recently Proven True.
A journalist’s question to Carl Jung: Do you think that, in twenty years, anyone will care about the spirit of symbols, fully in the era of interplanetary journeys, with the Sputniks, the Gagarins, and…[Read more]

The focus of this study is on the influence of urban ‘woods’ on people’s quality of life in disadvantaged neighbourhoods investigated via the lens of architecture in a Sub-Saharan metropolis. The new intra-Covid Urban Agenda acknowledges that current urban and state-wide resilience management plans, policies, and practices of neighbourhood are…[Read more]

Geertz, perhaps the most influential of the anthropologists, contends that symbolism and meaning are central to religion: “The view of man as a symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking animal, which has become increasingly popular both in the social sciences and in philosophy over the past several years, opens up a whole new approach not o…[Read more]