text:
Perhaps a manifesto – visual poetry from prehistory to the now
GUEST BLOGGER 12 (PART 2)
INTERVIEWED: KARL KEMPTON & PHILIP DAVENPORT
TEXT WORKS: DONA MAYOORA
A History of Visual Text Art is a gargantuan overview of visual poetry and text art by visual poet karl kempton, who is interviewed below with editor/publisher Philip Davenport.
kempton begins with newly-available prehistoric evidence, finds paths through complex clusters of religious and political influence across the globe and then moves into a long review of the 20th and 21st centuries, from the Russian Avant Garde to the Stieglitz Circle, Concrete Poets to Conceptual Art, Word Painting and Iconographic Painting, and beyond. An emphasis of the book is to celebrate voices and visions that have been sidelined in official verse history. The Text Festival shares this approach.
The book was published as a "prequel" to The Dark Would anthology (2013), which was an outshoot of the Text Festival, also edited by Philip Davenport who is a longtime associate of the Festival.
Interviewer Gary Cummiskey from Odd magazine is in conversation with karl kempton and Philip Davenport. This interview was first published by Odd in 2019.
VISUAL POEM SEQUENCE BY DONA MAYOORA
karl, what motivated you to start compiling the book, and how did you, Philip, get involved from the publishing aspect?
karl: Before we begin, I would like to thank The Odd Magazine, its Editor Sreemanti and you for your interest in the book, visual text art and visual poetry. It is an honor for us to be featured. I have received a great many benefits from India and am happy to be able to add something to its culture.In 2004 Dan Waber asked me about the differences between concrete and visual poetries. From that question came my long overview, "VISUAL POETRY: A Brief History of Ancestral Roots and Modern Traditions," that he published, containing many hot links for those interested in examples and supporting text sources. As far as I am aware, no English language individual has attempted another comprehensive global overview beginning with rock art to add to or correct my "Brief History." Over the years some links broke or died.I have many interests and activities outside visual poetry; this includes working as a marine environmental activist and protecting sacred sites of the Northern Chumash. In 2013 I turned over my efforts (23 years of research: writings, tables, and maps) to a skilled committee. Years of monthly articles summing portions of these materials can be found here.That is when I turned to correcting the broken links and to add more commentary for "Brief History." I was also asked to write an introduction to the Renegade Anthology. It became apparent quickly that there was more to learn in order to further the history of what became not a history of visual poetry, but rather a history of visual text art. Visual poetry is but one approach within this wider context. Understanding the wider context meant not only rewriting but widening my understanding of text usage in visual arts. I began the book in March 2013.
Philip: I've been fascinated by poems as and with images ever since I was a kid, reading Alice in Wonderland. When I was first published it was a set of poetic missing persons notices, which were in part image. I'd been chased by the police, billposting them. The British poet Bob Cobbing liked them and when he published me, he also introduced me to this world of seen words. In 2013, I made a language art anthology called The Dark Would, which brought together leading contemporary visual poets and text artists from around the world. In the virtual Volume 2 were 40 essays and interviews, but it still didn't feel enough. When Márton Koppány showed me karl's book, I knew that this was the prequel to The Dark Would.The relationship between this new book and The Dark Would is important because they share many characteristics. Both try to widen the field, the spectrum, we are in. Both try to restore silenced histories. Both work outside the academy, bringing in a different kind of knowledge. Both share this knowledge in a way that prioritises practice rather than theory exchange. And karl and I as people both define ourselves through this kind of art-making … It's why this project has worked so well, despite other differences we have.
Philip, you say that karl's approach to the book is 'unrepentantly non-academic' – in what way?
Philip: This is a book from outside the academy. It represents voices and visions of people who were "outsidered" marginalised because they were outside academic institutions, on the edge of artistic movements – and frequently by society itself – because of their mental or physical health, or political or other beliefs. karl's work is not academic in the traditional sense and several other senses (including visual!) He also is outside the academy, even though he represents a huge body of specialist knowledge. Mostly he adds this to his palette of visual/poetic expression. And to help him navigate an inner journey, which is not an academic pursuit, at least not in the western sense.
karl: The book is both objective and academic, subjective and autobiographical. The objective "academic" portions are attempts to present as accurate a history I am able on sourced accepted factual evidence. Some of the facts are parts of the often-repeated history of concrete and visual poetries; others are found among visual poetry histories ignored by concrete histories; and others belong to the wider history of an unwritten visual text history that provides a context for the concrete and visual poetry histories. Moving off the accepted academic story lines, though based on textual evidence, is perhaps where the more subjective portions of the book may be classified. The last section, "Among the Seers," though based on factual materials may be considered subjective. Inserted throughout are autobiographical moments presenting direct experiences within the wider context. Some may look upon it as a visual poet's or visual text artist's personal statement, perhaps even a manifesto.
If somebody were to talk to me about the origins of visual text art, I would think of Apollinaire's Calligrammes, the visual text experiments of Mallarme's Un Coup de Des, or (a little later) the work of artists such as Henri Michaux. But you point out that the origins of visual poetry can be found even in cave art or in the calligraphic scripts of the Arabic world, southern Asia and the Far East.
karl: The actual answer is unknown. I suggest that if the myths of the inventions of writing are visited, we see roots in many cases from nature or natural patterns. We do not know the oral context of rock art and thus whether or not visual poetics or an older parent were in use. It has just been announced that many rock art panels spread widely across Europe contained constellations and alignments to their stars. I am not surprised having found my first Chumash solar and polar star aligned site in 1978 with a later associated burial site dated of 9,500 years old.Early patterned alphabet and language is found on ancient charms, amulets, and yantras. Some have iconographics associated with them. Other early amulets were composed with hieroglyphic and ideogramic forms. Some of these shapes, alphabet and iconographic, have moved from rock art to pottery to other portable objects before parchment and then paper.
What is the relationship between visual poetry and concrete poetry?
karl: With Dick Higgins, publisher of the avant-garde Something Else Press, I co-guest edited a special visual poetry issue of the Canadan magazine, 10•5155•20, in 1983. That was the moment a concrete and fluxist publisher and poet agreed with my definitions of concrete and visual poetries. I have fine-tuned the definitions since. Both use fissioned particles of the stuff of language; concrete poets only create with text and its particles; visual poets fuse text and its particles with other arts. Concrete and other purists reject iconography mixed with text.I forget who asked the wider community who first used the term visual poetry as a specific type. Both Higgins and I pointed to the same date, 1965. In my book I go into greater detail to point out that contrary to its written histories, concrete poetry was not new as a visual text expression. Before concrete poetry were concrete art and concrete music. Nevertheless, it was the first global poetry movement. Many of us view concrete poetry as a specific movement and later a specific type of expression under the wider umbrella term visual poetry, a poetry composed that requires the reader to see the poem for a complete experience.Because of the self-imposed confines dictated by concrete poetry, many around the globe rebelled. To stand apart they embraced the term visual poetry. This should not be confused with a recycled term in current usage, vispo, a continuation of text-only concrete poetry.
Kenneth Patchen is one American poet and artist who gets quite prominent coverage in the book – and rightly so. But what about Ezra Pound? I am thinking of his introduction of Chinese characters into some of the cantos.
karl: My brief discussion of Pound focused on three concerns: 1) his knowledge and comments concerning one of many disappearing acts by concrete theoreticians and history myth-makers, the erasure of Henry-Martin Barzun, who Pound knew and was familiar with his visual poetry; 2) Blast; and 3) the Chinese ideogram error.His use of ideogram images as a visual poetry is suggestive and perhaps considered so by some. Not me. They can be considered illustrations of what he wrongly viewed in the context of his imagist poetic where the ideogram exemplified for him a purer poetic moment than available with alphabetical-based text. His use as illustrations, it seems to me, was to support his erroneous claim that Chinese ideograms were a visual language. Embedded in this approach one finds his mistaken view that the written form was a higher ideal than the spoken. He embraced Confucianism at the time when his peers, those also interested in Chinese culture, were pulled not towards hierarchy but Ch'an and Taoist poetics, they being anti-hierarchical.Philip: Pound is important, but he's already given huge attention at the expense of other people. What karl brings is fresh news — people whose ideas haven't already been ingested, Barzun is one, but the book contains a host of others. There's also a renewed problem with Pound's Fascism, given that we are in an age where the far right is resurrecting as populism, the alt right, etc. Those ideas don't need any more oxygen, they need challenge. This book offers another reading of the history of visual poetry that includes traditions sometimes seen as threatening, like Arabic word painting, which has Islamic roots and would be considered "alien" by a European alt right organisation like Pergida.
The book also covers asemic writing, though I have noted that some visual poets are quite critical – if not dismissive – of asemic writing.
karl: I needed to address asemic writing because of its current popularity. I assume most of its composers remain, as most visual poets, uninformed about the history of visual text art on the one hand and the damage caused to all the arts by the philosophical arguments found in non- referential art.
What were the challenges in compiling and editing the book?
karl: The vastness of the subject matter is beyond one individual. Individual segments have been skillfully covered, but not the entire spectrum. Without the internet this project would not have been possible. In 1975 I consciously removed myself from active literary centers to pursue my poetic close to the ocean here in south San Luis Obispo County. There are no nationally ranked local research libraries. I do not have academic access or financial assistance for extended periods of time for library research. I also refused to venture out to research libraries, not wanting to add to my carbon footprint. Thus, throughout the six years of writing and researching, I added a significant number of books to my library. It took over a year familiarizing myself with some of the Russian Futurists and their influences, including a deep dive into ikon art from its beginnings. I uncovered an error that Orphism was an idea from Apollinaire; it came from Barzun. Correcting the Apollinaire contribution to visual text art required much research and the help of Michael Winkler, who visited the Barzun archives at Columbia University to photograph some of the vast collection of his visual poems. The error in the standard history of Orphism, many references to Plato, and the Islamic Science of Letters pushed me to look afresh at the Greek philosophers and Orpheus. Many other jumped-through hoops are found in the book presenting my findings. These few examples illustrate my primary challenge, to present in-depth commentary on this complex subject matter.
Copyright law presented a maze I did not want to run. That is the reason the book is an internet-published pdf with over a 1000 hot links to individual works and various texts ranging from essays to books. We plan an e-book edition later in the year.Another challenge is my dyslexia. It requires me to burden others to be proofreaders. Also, in order not to become trapped in mistaken concepts, I need knowledgeable readers. Karl Young died during the writing. Márton Koppány has been an indispensable sounding board over the years for this book. Harry Polkinhorn has been generous with his time, especially proofing and assistance with Latin American issues. Gerald Janecek has been essential regarding Russian Futurism. Others noted in the Acknowledgements have also been of great help.
And, Philip Davenport, my editor and publisher, has added to the project making it far more than I first planned. Part of the addition was associating the book with the blog Synapse International online anthology, the first of its kind in India, thanks to its host Anindya Ray.Some of my peers regard this as a life-long work. They are not wrong. Without my many interests, including rock art, symbols, calligraphy, Vedanta, Sufism, Ch'an/Zen, North American First People Ways, the history of ideas, economic history, and the history of religions, the book would not have provided the wider context throughout history around the globe. Such context seems to me to be generally missing. The reasons for this are discussed in the book.
Philip: The problem for me was not to be an editor in the usual meaning of the word. The discussion within it had already been chewed over with two other editors: Karl Young and Márton Koppany. In addition, I wanted to respect karl as a dyslexic writer because I thought this was an essential part of his aesthetic, which affects how he sees words, sometimes in three dimensions and with inner light. Therefore, while I did some work on the text, it was with a delicate touch. Instead I brought in contrasting elements.My most visible editorial role was to insert sequences of poem/images in the book, by varied invited practitioners; then secondly to work on the blog which we decided would be a kind of second volume to the book, showing hundreds of works by contemporary visual poets and artists.
Philip, you say in the introduction that you don't agree with all the ideas in the book – could you elaborate on your differences of opinion?
Philip: Collisions produce energy and there are some differences that have fed into the book. I grew up in a so-called religious war in Northern Ireland and that makes me suspicious of any religiosity, whereas karl's worldview has spirituality as a touchstone. We have joked a few times about the fact that my gurus were the Sex Pistols and the poetic experimenter Bob Cobbing, rather than anyone from esoteric religious traditions. Therefore, I brought scepticism, a certain amount of humour, and a different set of references.But if this is anything, it's a book that allows space for difference. It is full of stories of poets, artists and others who didn't fit with the orthodoxy of their time. From the medieval mystic Marguerite Porette, who was burned for heresy, through to members of the Stieglitz Circle, who were silenced by critics, there's a theme of people being silenced, or even erased. One of the unusual things about karl's book is that it contains its own dissenting voice too, a series of letters from the remarkable visual poet Márton Koppány; it is only a short section, but it ripples through the whole thing. What is crucial is that it all serves to bring to light poets, artists, whose opinions differ from the official histories.
What is the relevance of such a book today? What is the relevance of visual poetry itself?
karl: It has relevance for those interested in the history and context of visual text art. I wrote this to correct what I saw as misinformation and missing information.Visual text art has the relevance of any art. Text wedded with image, because of available technology, has become ubiquitous. Stated above, discussions on concrete and visual poetries lack context and are guilty of misrepresentation (in my opinion). Also, the writings generally are caught in the centric web of concrete and or visual poetry points of view. Individuals wanting to move beyond cliché may find it relevant.
Philip: Linking words and visuality together is an ancient practice that goes deep into all of our pre-history. That crossover doesn't stop at language and image. Making signs, making marks, leaving traces, making patterns, communicating through gesture, dance, all of these things are possibilities. And as our tech and our needs evolve, more possibilities will be added, not subtracted. (Do you know Christian Bok's poem "Xenotext", written with a bacteria?) The mistake is to think that any of the differences between media are barriers. They're simply reservoirs of material for us to unlock and use. Advertisers, propagandists, signwriters, website designers, filmmakers, games designers… all combine media to add complexity, depth, power, resonance.Why wouldn't poets want to use these materials too? We speak with the means that speak most deeply to us.
FREE PDF DOWNLOAD OF karl kempton's A HISTORY OF VISUAL TEXT ART HERE
VISUAL POEM SEQUENCE BY DONA MAYOORA:
Without Title
Asemic Zen Bull
Shidarezakura
Without Title (repeat)
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 3, 2019 by Bury Art Museum Objects.
Behind & Between the Lines, by karl kempton
GUEST BLOGGER 12
ESSAY: KARL KEMPTON
TEXT WORKS: MOHAMMAD ARIF KHAN
karl kempton's a history of visual text art traces the deep roots of language art, finding poems for the eye in the ancient, the occluded and the disappeared. It was published by Apple Pie in 2018, as a 'prequel' to The Dark Would anthology, which itself grew from the Text Festival. A free PDF download of kempton's book is here.
kempton's account begins with newly-available prehistoric evidence, finds paths through clusters of religious and political influence across the globe and then moves into a long review of the 20th and 21st Centuries, from the Russian Avant Garde to the Stieglitz Circle, Concrete Poets to Conceptual Art, Arabic Word Painting, Iconographic Painting, and beyond. The book is unusual for finding nuances and practitioners who had been ignored, or erased. So we have Barzun's story more than Apollinaire, we have Theosophy in the lineage, alongside Mallarmé we have the seers. Crucially, kempton includes non-Western narratives, and details the affect of spiritual practices — particularly Buddhist Ch'an and Zen, Sufism and American First People — on the gestation of language arts. Much of the book is an untold history: some practitioners discussed in it were suppressed by violence or persecution, for others the erasure has been more subtle. The book is most especially for those makers who have been "disappeared", bringing them back to our eyes.
The blog Synapse International (Ed. kempton and Davenport) is an online Volume Two of illustrations, gathering a wide range of works by visual text practitioners from around the world, selected by guest editors.
(a history of visual text, publicity notes 2018)
And so. The spectrum of visual poetry and what passes as visual poetry continues to expand. But large numbers of visual text art works created before WWII were made by individuals who are now either forgotten, ignored or have been "disappeared" in ego-driven poetry conflicts between various camps. The primary division being between the egalitarian and the only-us. One of the intents of my 2005 essay VISUAL POETRY: A Brief History of Ancestral Roots and Modern Traditions (1) and its expansion into my long book in 2018 is bringing to light the missing-in-action.
My 2005 web-published essay needed updating and links were broken. More information had been accumulated. The essay answered a question from Dan Waber concerning the differences between concrete and visual poetries, a question whose fullest answer became the book in 2018. In between, I was asked to write an introduction to a proposed visual poetry anthology, Renegade, a collection of international visual poetry & language arts (2) and realized I had to study the pre WWI Russian avant-garde.
No one had followed up on my suggestion for a multi-volume book on the history and developments of visual poetry; I decided to do it myself. I'd write an overview others could add to or correct where they saw shortcomings. I planned a free pdf for the interested with hot links to works doubling as an virtual anthology to avoid the maze of copyright laws. Had I known the road would take me on a six-year journey, I may not have begun. But I am richer in knowledge, meeting many new word painters and visual text artists. The book expanded the essay of 39 pages to 569.
The essay also provided an overview of the ancestry of visual text and poetry types before 1900, beginning with the origins of writing in rock art. In the early 1970s many poets in the country became interested in ethnopoetics, ch'an / zen and later sufism. But many sources remained untouched such as Marshack and Gimbutas, both of whom I closely read. Gimbutas' theorized origins of proto-writing are to be found as signs in rock art, later-pottery and other portable objects. Her contention was that these early developments in the evolution of proto-writing to alphabets were ground breaking. With the old guard gone, new techniques in use, and new and expanded areas of research, new finds arrived on the web almost weekly, sometimes daily. I tried to keep up and add the more significant findings during the writing of the book. The most radical changes were the new views on the Neanderthal (though Gimbutas had nodded in their direction and for doing so was soundly rejected. She was actually decades in the forefront).
My first writings on the visual sources of inspirations for proto-writing and alphabets appeared in "visual poetry: definitions, context and problem of types," Innovations I, 1991. Interests in archaeology, mythology, ethnopoetics, and spiritual traditions informed me of various pathways of early visual communication with their respective evolutions. I expanded the list of proto-writing and went deeper into detail, including suggestions for alternatives to the traditionally-accepted narrative of the development of signs becoming our alphabet. Concrete and visual poetries were constantly appearing in mail art collections and other publications; most of their alphabet-origin-works remained with the unquestioned Eurocentric view of pre-Greek, Phoenician South East Mediterranean, Egypt, Fertile Crescent and China fields. But, these areas were not probed for earlier developments. Among the geographical exceptions Karl Young (3) pointed with dexterity and detail to Meso-America as another unique origin. (4)
Calligraphy cannot be ignored. Each major religious area has its own forms of beauty and associated iconographics, some of which jumped from rock art to pottery to page. Calligraphy was a major visual text art until its demise caused by the printing press in Europe, contrary to its prominence in Islamic Culture and East Asia. The health of South Asian forms is mixed. In my book, the discussion on calligraphy follows a sequential development before 1900. A more detailed look at esoteric calligraphy is given in the last section. The historical development of the Science of Letters begins with Orpheus. Surprisingly, the Islamic Science of Letters influenced European visual text arts after WWII. "Surprisingly" because I find no direct discussion of this among visual poetics, only in collections of Arab language word painting. Members and associates of the Lettrists and Art Informal were Persian and Arab word painters. Out of Arab and Persian calligraphies after WWII came the development of word painting. Word painting found expression in America from the 1920s onward. I hope others will expand on its overview in my book.
Correcting visual poetry history
The third focus in the essay was an (ongoing) attempt to correct the historical record of concrete and visual poetry. Some, like my deceased friend Bob Grumman, held tightly to the accepted story promoted by concretists: Apollinaire to Cummings to American concrete. For me, this lineage ignores three areas of concrete poetry origin in the early 1950s influencing American concrete. It also ignores the earliest American visual poetry and text art composed before WWI within the Stieglitz Circle, published in 291, that also influenced European works by Picabia and others. It additionally ignores the Circle's influence on portraiture in visual poetry, iconographic and word painting before WWI into the 1930s. The Circle was founded on photography, years before Kitason Katue, of the Japanese avant-garde group VOU, called for poets to replace the pen with a camera to flip objects into iconographic symbols for a wordless poetic. He too was a forerunner of concrete. (5)
Information available to me for the essay that I had previously trusted I correct in my book. For example, I expanded the discussion on the Circle to included short biographies and works of influence illustrating its larger significance in American visual text art into the 30s ignored or disappeared by concrete, neo-concrete (vispo'ers) and visual poets. Curiously, they were a New York City avant-garde later ignored by later groups centered in New York. Another correction was unraveling the self-glorification of the Brazilian Noigandres Group. If this was their only fault, I would have ignored it. They caught the virus of supremacy at all costs from a mix of Italian Futurism, Marxian or Hegelian dialectics, and rejecting-the-past nihilism. They allied themselves with factions of American concrete; this academic consolidation formed a self-appointed "avant-garde" promoting Noigandres concrete above all others. Then they participated in disappearing others' histories contrary to their party line in this country (USA) as was done in Brazil by Noigandres.
The fourth focus, another part of correcting the histories, shines a light into the pit where historians of concrete poetry tossed individuals, to ensure their disappearance. In the essay, among others I point to, is the attempted erasure of the 1939 to 1948 visual poems of Kenneth Patchen that essentially form a checklist of types of concrete to come. It seems trying to prove originality leads to this behavior, even among poets who, ideally, are truth seekers, sayers and whose stance is truth to power. Seems I am an idealist.
My interest in correcting what I and some others considered the history of visual poetics began when I met Miriam Patchen, Kenneth Patchen's widow, for an interview in 1978 for Kaldron 9. (6) Kenneth Patchen is considered by many in this country to be our William Blake. Yet, his work neither appears in American concrete poetry anthologies nor was he discussed or mentioned, not even in a footnote. Yet he was the forerunner of American concrete, proven with his numerous proto-concrete works from 1939 through 1948, before turning to his better-known picture poems. I remain disturbed and disgruntled with the responses from the anthology publishers and editors to my querying his disappearance, if they answered me at all. I also remain puzzled at the shoulder-shrug responses in the concrete and visual poetry communities. Are they keeping their heads low not to be seen by those they unwittingly give power to, the gatekeepers of the orthodox story, or do they not care about tradition, craft, beauty and truth?
I tasked myself to correct the record where necessary. Patchen, I discovered, was not an exception; the running total of the ignored and disappeared grew with my occasional research over the years. The problem of gender representation appears after WWII. Undervaluing or ignoring women characterizes the concrete anthologies where one or two women appear, token-like. Doris Cross and Betty Danon, both deceased, remain ignored by the American gatekeepers (Betty Danon on her work: "It will be given acknowledgement when you don't care any more.") (7) The body of works by Marilyn Rosenberg and K. S. Ernst are generally ignored. (8) My task of course challenges the American-gatekeeper "history." Speaking truth to power in my environmental efforts led to death threats and a tapped phone. (9) Speaking truth to this "avant-garde" academic literati led only to ostracism. (10) Such was not the case for Harry Polkinhorn after the April 7-8, 1995 Yale conference, "Symphosophia: The End of Literature." During his presentation of his paper, "Hyperotics: A Towards A Theory Of Experimental Poetry," he announced the publication of Philadelpho Menezes' Visuality: Trajectory of Contemporary Brazilian Poetry by SDSU Press. Publication in Brazil had been blocked by the Noigandres cartel. (11) Polkinhorn's translation caused a ferocious and personal response by the academic concrete-language poetry clique. Polkinhorn left visual poetics creating a great loss in American translations from Spanish and Portuguese Latin American visual text arts.
Exchanges with Dan Waber, host of the website "minimalist concrete poetry," (12) who published my article in 2005, (13) show Karl Young and I were not the only ones upset with the disappearance of Patchen and others from the anthologies. Dan was as appalled as Karl and others. kaldlron(.2), (14) the web site, came into being under the skilled guidance of Karl Young. (15) With the help of Harry Polkinhorn and its contributors we continued publishing the best works we could and provided context for the works, mainly with his articulate essays. The web site continues to provide numerous supporting sources for my essays. (See also the current Synapse International)
Orphism to Seers
Another vexed topic was the need for a term to categorize works of high quality imbued with (to my eyes at least) true vision, beauty and a spiritual root. In my essay I had decided on "Orphism" as a catch-all term, which had already been in use before WWI. Not having a deadline for the book allowed me to follow hinted and hidden trails seen in footnotes or between lines uncovering more overlooked, consciously disappeared or forgotten individuals, groups, and influences. I read closely the intents of the pre WWI avant-garde. I found an error in my essay regarding Orphism. Orphism's actual founder was not Apollinaire, for whom it was attributed. I corrected this error, rightfully crediting Henri-Martin Barzun. (16) I also found and added seer painters and their works. Wanting a continuity within the history of visual poetry, I did not look for a new term. With Orphism as a category I listed a few individuals I thought presented works worthy of study by others — and for those new to visual poetry as possible role models. Coming across the writings of Henri-Martin Barzun in his American published books proselytizing Orphism, I came to learn his intent, and the intent of those associated with him: creating a new form of integrated art to lift culture and hence society to a higher level of awareness. Part of the original choice of the term Orphism was influenced by ethnopoetics where one finds the original function of the poet for her or his group, tribe or nation. (17)
Correcting this error along with deeper studies of various spiritual influences led me to ignored or rejected aspects of Platonic philosophy. (18) To understand the roots of contemporary Arab and Persian language word painting, I studied the biographies, writings and poetry of Sufi masters whose works formed the philosophy of the Science of Letters. It seems few visual poets and no (as far as I know) concrete poets were aware of the influence of the Science of Letters on the Lettrists and Art Informel. Platonic and esoteric philosophies influenced many of the pre WWI avant-garde, excluding the Italian Futurists who eventually, disastrously, embraced fascism. This material is of course associated with a baleful history, but the artistic influence exists and should be acknowledged, especially in this time of the rising far-right which thrives on invisibility, misunderstanding and code.
In the Islamic sphere hundreds of years ago many of these strands were woven into the Science of Letters that now informs many Arab and Persian language word painters. (19) Again, the influence of Islam is problematized by contemporary fundamentalism and the current Western societal responses to it. And once again, I believe, the word and its backstory needs to be made fully visible.
Pulling inspiration from iconographic spiritual symbols, except surface use for collage works, remains frowned upon in my country, the USA. The negativity is such even someone as fiercely independent and strong as Karl Young held back from publicly dipping into his spiritual tradition to compose works, fearful of the reactionary consequences from academic "avant-garde" peers. Karl's father, alive during the 1990s and deeply loved by Karl, was a retired minister. In the 1960s their home was a target for attacks because he fought racism in Kenosha. Karl continued defending the "underdog" throughout his life against bullies, regardless of occupation. I got to know Karl intimately beginning in the late 80s through correspondence and then long phone conversations for which he was well known among his friends. He had been among the first to create a body of critical work supporting the emerging language poets. Later he became a champion of those they tried to erase or ignore.
What I did not explicitly discuss in my essay was beauty. Beauty had become pejorative. A sad commentary on our times and the avant-garde that not only are poets and artists fearful of attack or ostracism for expressing a form of spirituality but also for attempting to reach for beauty as part of a work. In my book I face toward "Beauty," with a capital B, and link the discussion to what I see as the function of the visual text artist and poet, particularly in word painting the pervasive influence of the Science of Letters and Platonic philosophy.
Orphism, as understood by Barzun and his colleagues, was a group not individual effort. While I consciously live removed from literary centers in a semi-rural area on the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean in Central California , I often work with others, long distance in my poetics and short distance in environmental protection. The same process applied to writing the book. Originally, I planned the book without visual materials. This changed when Márton Koppány, who became my primary reader, introduced me to Philip Davenport. While Márton was my primary reader there remained areas of disagreement with some of my observations, views and conclusions. Philip eventually became the book's publisher and a co-editor of the international visual text anthology, Synapse International, hosted by Anindya Ray of Kokata, the first of its kind hosted in India. This blog anthology was devised as an online Volume Two for the book, of contemporary works, illustrating the landscape I describe – Philip's idea. He also suggested "interventions" into the book itself, to present alternative points of view, Márton's and my dialogue being one. He additionally suggested I select works to add visual materials within the book. I soon agreed seeing the wisdom of such an approach. An overview is available associated with 14 visual text works in Oddity 18. (20)
As a totality, my writings on visual poetry and text art, and my gatherings of this work, are intended to promote an egalitarian, healthy visual poetry community fully integrated with other visual text arts. I have one voice among many, some agree and others not. It is in the hands of the group to decide whether or not to follow the inclusive model of correspondence/mail art or become a collection of ghettoes and dead end cul-de-sacs in conflict resulting in limited audience that Karl Young warned against in 1995.
A final note. One of the drives of the Stieglitz Circle before WWI was to manifest an American vision. While they were trying to accomplish something uniquely American, such a vision was already nascent in New Mexico. From the 1920s into the 1940s some of the Circle witnessed it but seemed not to recognize its importance. In the mid to late 1920s others saw it and were influenced before, during, and after they formed the Transcendental Group, 1938-1942. It was the development of the First Nation's iconographic painting. And surely it is the First People that we should acknowledge first of all…? (21)
Navajo Prayer — Beauty Way
In beauty may I walk
All day long may I walk
Through the returning seasons may I walk
Beautifully I will possess again
Beautifully birds
Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk
With dew about my feet may I walk
With beauty may I walk
With beauty before me may I walk
With beauty behind me may I walk
With beauty above me may I walk
With beauty all around me may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty,
lively, may I walk
living again, may I walk
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty.
Essay: karl kempton, Oceano, California. August, 2019
Visual text sequence by Mohammad Arif Khan, from the series Mystic Letter
FREE PDF DOWNLOAD OF A HISTORY OF VISUAL TEXT ART
1 http://www.logolalia.com/minimalistconcretepoetry/archives/cat_kempton_karl.html
2 http://visualpoetryrenegade.blogspot.com/
3 An intervention from Márton Koppány: "I'm especially glad to see Karl Young mentioned. It is important to keep his work alive. Based on my exchange of ideas and collaboration with him (which went on for one and a half decade or so), I feel that his knowledge, taste and inclinations were catholic. He was as open toward pre-modernist traditions and source-works (in Europe, Asia /with a special emphasis on Japan, because of his personal connections and also because of the shock of Hiroshima/, the Americas and elsewhere) as toward existentialism or the French Nouveau Roman, for instance. And all those sources influenced his poetry."
4 http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/bot/boturini.htm & http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/bot/ky-anm.htm
5 http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/japan/kitasono.htm
6 http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/kempatch.htm
7 Cross: http://synaptry.blogspot.com/2018/11/doris-cross.html, http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/dcross00.htm; Danon: http://synaptry.blogspot.com/2018/10/betty-da-
8 Rosenberg: http://synaptry.blogspot.com/2018/10/marilyn-r-rosen-
9 Anti-nuclear power, protecting sacred Chumash sites, fighting pesticide drift and use, and nearshore and offshore ocean environment protection.
10 They embraced the Brazilian Noigandres Group concrete poetry as heroic, despite the fact that none of the Noigandres Group were troubled by the fascist regime whilst it was in power, contrary to the experience of other Brazilian poets and visual poets arrested and tortured. None of the Noigandres members were jailed as they were apparently deemed safe, if not supporters of the status quo, i.e., not avant-garde but retro-garde? Think: stories of Clemente Padin's and Jorge Caraballo's incarcerations for several years under Uruguay's military dictatorship, the jailing of Paulo Brusky (three times) and Daniel Santiago in Brazil, the kidnapping of Jesus Romero Galdamez Escobar by the El Salvadorian military, and the exiling of Guillermo Deisler from Chile. Perhaps these others were actually the heroic poets, visual and lexical…? Chile: how can we forget the poets, writers, artists and countless other citizens killed, tortured, or exiled?
From Polkinhorn's paper, "Hyperotics: A Towards A Theory Of Experimental Poetry," delivered at Yale's "Symphosophia: The End of Literature": "There are big stakes to continuing these arguments. Among them are the chance to define cultural history, not to mention more mundane consequences such as ten-ured university positions with full health, vision, and dental coverage as well as the possibility of retiring without sliding into poverty. So assertions about what is and is not experimental poetry (or some other cultural form) will continue, and as usual the primary beneficiaries of these discussions will continue to be the arguers, not those about whose works the arguments are being conducted."
11 From Polkinhorn email: "One of the de Campos brothers was there, with his son, and he walked out of my presentation, in a grossly conspicuous fashion." And: "The whole conference at Yale was a kind of set-up, a glorification arranged by the Language School manipulators to further their narrow agenda by getting the im-primatur of Yale for the Brazilian Concretists (and themselves of course). I crashed their party with the Menezes book." Polkinhorn email exchange.
12 http://www.logolalia.com/minimalistconcretepoetry/
13 http://www.logolalia.com/minimalistconcretepoetry/archives/cat_kempton_karl.html
14 http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/kaldron.htm
15 http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/kal-note.htm
16 He created simultaneity, although it is often credited to Apollinaire and Marinetti. They reduced it to a single page; Barzun contended that a single voiced point of view poem in the new urban complexity was inadequate; it required multi voices simultaneously, choir-like poetry. His visual poems were also, in a sense, multi-voiced scores.
17 For English language roots, see White Goddess by Robert Graves.
18 Not to be confused with the religious, though in a few cases they are intertwined among individuals such as Robert Lax
19 https://www.pinterest.com/karlkempton/word-painting-1/
20 https://theoddmagazine.wixsite.com/oddity18 visual poetry issue: https://theoddmaga-
21 See the extraordinary anthology: Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. Edited and with commentaries by Jerome Rothenberg. University of California Press; 3rd edition (2017) recommended.
This entry was posted in archive, text festival and tagged a history of visual text, concrete poetry, karl kempton, language art, Mohammad Arif Khan, text art, The Dark Would, visual text on August 8, 2019 by Bury Art Museum Objects.
RANDOM Archive Symposium 12 August
Saturday, 12 August, 11am-3pm
Symposium at Bury Art Museum
'Silences, interventions, disruptions: Exploring the text art archive'
Invited artists, writers and researchers respond to the notion of practice based archives and the collection of text art held within ours. Including papers, performances, readings and informal panel discussions. A launch event for the 2019 Text Art Festival, and to mark the close of the RANDOM Archive exhibition.
The day will feature presentations and panel discussions with a number of artists and writers including Lauren Velvick, Lisa Wigham, Penny Anderson, Phil Davenport and Jez Dolan, with performances by Helmut Lemke and Rachel Defay-Liautard. We will consider the ways in which archives might be spaces used for generating text art, and ways in which this art might resist the constraints of the space. The afternoon panel will examine the people and narratives 'absented' from institutional archives and the practitioners who seek to create alternatives and mark out these histories. We will close with the launch of the 2019 Text Festival announcement by Director Tony Trehy, followed by drinks and a final opportunity to view the RANDOM Archive exhibition.
Lunch and refreshments provided – please sign up in advance (link)
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on August 9, 2017 by hannahelizabethallan.
Workshop: LGBTQI+ Archives Through Polari
Saturday 15 July, 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Join us this Saturday for a workshop which explores the Polari language and artworks relating to the research of this hidden coded language which are held by the Bury Text Art Archive.
Hosted by co-curator of the 'Random Archive' exhibition Hannah Allan and artist Jez Dolan who has carried out extensive research around Polari and other overlooked Queer cultural histories. http://jezdolan.com
Image: 'A Polari Etymology' Jez Dolan (2013)
Please sign up using the link below or by calling the gallery on 0161 253 5878
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/polari-divine-tickets-34462318723
All welcome – with or without knowledge of the subject area.
Exploring the various language categorisations that can be used when cataloguing an LGBTQ archive.
Part of the Random Archive exhibition at Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre which features work of national and international language artists which are part of Bury Art Museum's unique Text Art Archive. For more information about this exhibition and related workshops please visit BuryArtMuseum.co.uk
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on July 11, 2017 by hannahelizabethallan.
Workshop: Catalogue Poetics
Join us this Saturday for a creative workshop where we will use the structure of archive catalogues and respond to works within the RANDOM Archive show to create short poems and an alternative guide to the show through our own responses to the pieces.
Welcoming those with and without previous writing experience.
Please sign up using the link below, or please ring the gallery on 0161 253 5878
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/catalogue-poetics-creative-writing-workshop-tickets-34462006790
Saturday, 24 June, 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Exploring the language and syntax used when cataloguing an archive, and how this might be used creatively to draw out narratives or work with the documents.
This entry was posted in archive on June 21, 2017 by hannahelizabethallan.
Random Archive workshops
Running along side the Random Archive exhibition are a series of FREE workshops funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The workshops explore how to catalouge and care for community & personal archives, how to establish a DIY/Feminist archive, how to catalouge an LGBTQI+ archive and how to create your own Digital Archive. For more information on dates & times visit the Random Archive Workshop tab or Bury Art Museum website http://www.buryartmuseum.co.uk
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on May 17, 2017 by Bury Art Museum Objects.
Random Archive Exhibition – (20/05/2017- 12/08/2017)
Curated by Susan lord and Dr. Hannah Allan, the Random Archive exhibition features work of national and international Language Artists which is part of Bury Art Museum's unique Text Art Archive. Random Archive attempts to push boundaries by questioning how an archive can be viewed, accessed and explored. This is a unique opportunity for visitors to get up close in a gallery setting to a collection which is usually kept in store, the public will be encouraged to interact with it and explore it afresh.
archive architecture
text festival


text:
The NFL is looking to take on big players in 2020
The NFL, which was already making strides in the wake of the Super Bowl's cancellation, has recently focused on the 2020 season.
With the league facing an uncertain future under President Donald Trump, the league is now taking on a host of marquee players and franchises, with several of the biggest names in the game set to make their debuts in 2020.
Here are some of the big-name players slated to make a return in 2020:1.
Tom Brady (New England Patriots)The Patriots are the NFL's all-time leading passer, but they're unlikely to play in a Super Bowl this year, given the political climate in Washington.
Brady will make his first NFL start in 2020, with his new teammates on the sidelines.
The Pats will host the Pittsburgh Steelers in a home-and-home series, and the Patriots' star quarterback has been a key part of the team's success since joining the organization in 2010.
The Patriots will face the Pittsburgh Panthers in the NFC Championship Game.
The Patriots' quarterback will be a key factor in the team continuing to dominate in the AFC East.
The Broncos will face Brady and the Pats in the divisional round.
Brady's new contract is set to bring him to $22 million per season.2.
Joe Flacco (Baltimore Ravens)The Ravens are coming off of a disappointing season and are expected to be without Flacco this year.
The Ravens are the most talented team in the NFL with the likes of Joe Flournoy, Ed Reed, Joe Haden and Steve Smith all making their debits.
The team is expected to face off against the New York Jets in the wild-card round.3.
Carson Palmer (Palmer Raiders)The Oakland Raiders have been among the NFL teams to get the most attention in the aftermath of the election, and they're poised to make an impact in 2020 as well.
The Raiders will face off with the New Orleans Saints in the Divisional Round, and Palmer will make the start.
The Chargers will host Carson Palmer in the postseason.4.
Ryan Tannehill (Miami Dolphins)The Dolphins are one of the most dangerous teams in the league, and Tanneh will make an important return in the playoff hunt.
TanneHampson will be the Dolphins' starting quarterback for the first time since 2010, as he is the team leader in passing yards and touchdowns and has thrown for over 3,000 yards in each of the past two seasons.
Tanel will make a second start in 2018, as the Dolphins will host Ryan Tanney in the Wild Card Round.5.
Matt Ryan (Atlanta Falcons)The Falcons will have to contend with Ryan Tannes, Matt Ryan and the Carolina Panthers in their home-field advantage in the playoffs.
The Falcons are expected be without offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter in 2020 due to his dismissal from the organization.6.
Matt Schaub (San Francisco 49ers)The 49ers are expected for a significant overhaul, as new general manager John Lynch and offensive coordinator Greg Roman have been at odds for years.
However, Schaub is expected for the team to make another run in 2020 and beyond.
The 49ers will host Drew Brees and the Saints in a playoff game.7.
Dez Bryant (Dallas Cowboys)The Cowboys are one-and, at the moment, the only team that is still winning football games in 2020 after a 2-12 start.
DeZ Bryant is expected in 2020 to be the only player in the Cowboys' history to score 50, 100, 200 or 300 yards in a season.8.
Eli Manning (New York Giants)The Giants are in a rebuilding mode and will have plenty of options in 2020 that can help them win in the upcoming playoff chase.
Eli is expected play in the 2020 NFC Championship and will be joined by the Denver Broncos in the Superbowl.9.
Brian Hoyer (Houston Texans)The Texans are expected in 2019 to face Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in the second round of the playoffs, but Hoyer will be in the first round of a possible playoff game after the Patriots beat them in the 2018 divisional playoffs.10.
Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks)Wilson will make another start in the regular season after missing most of the season due to injury.
Wilson will be on the field for the Seahawks in 2020 when they play the Arizona Cardinals in the Arizona Super Bowl.11.
Eli Sanders (New Orleans Saints)The Saints will be without the services of offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski and quarterbacks coach Tom Coughlin, but Sanders will be back in 2020 with the team.
Sanders will also be in 2020 for the Saints' playoff game against the Tennessee Titans.12.
Robert Griffin III (Washington Redskins)The Redskins have been a perennial playoff contender in the past three seasons, but Griffin III will be coming off his best season as a pro.
The Redskins will play in Super Bowl LI and face the New England Patriots in the First Round of the NFL Playoffs.13.
Jameis Winston (
Tags: bloomberg finance, finance major

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


HCM CITY — With its goal of becoming a facilitator and partner to businesses, the Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province government has constantly reformed and built a transparent institution to create favourable conditions for investors a level playing field for businesses.
Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu has thus become an ideal destination in the eyes of many investors.
Located in the southern key economic zone and nearly 100km from the country's largest economic hub, HCM City, Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu boasts many strengths and its maritime economy, including tourism, ports, oil and gas, and seafood exploitation and processing, has great potential.
The province's potential is in fact unique in Việt Nam.
It is the largest steel, gas, electricity and nitrogen producer in the country, ensuring uninterrupted supply of inputs and fuel for large projects by strategic investors.
In the last few years the province has made relentless efforts to build comprehensive, modern infrastructure to facilitate trade, and has gradually transformed its growth model from mainly exploiting natural resources to services, tourism, ports, and hi-tech agriculture.
With its Cái Mép – Thị Vải port complex, ranked among the top ports in Southeast Asia and one of only 19 in the world that can handle 190,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) vessels, the province will be a gateway for international trade and trans-shipment in Southeast Asia.
This is also the only port complex in Việt Nam from where container ships can sail directly to Europe and America.
In tourism, besides continuing to exploit existing attractions like Côn Đảo and Bình Châu Hot Spring, the province plans to develop some world-class sites.
The province has completed the coastal road from Vũng Tàu City to Xuyên Mộc District, forming a unique beach tourism route with luxury hotels and resorts along the pristine coast. But there are still many sites where investors can develop classy tourism projects.
Besides 14 general industrial parks with comprehensive infrastructure, the province also has two industrial parks specialising in supporting industries: Phú Mỹ 3 and Đá Bạc.
Work on the US$5.4 billion Long Sơn Petrochemical Complex will start soon and it is expected to go on stream in 2022, providing a big push for economic development.
The province has approved a programme for high-tech agricultural development for up to 2020 with a vision to 2025, which envisages setting aside more than 5,000ha in various localities for high-tech agriculture.
Investors in high-tech agricultural projects will always be welcomed with many incentives.
To meet the increasing needs of local development, Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu has invited leading domestic and foreign experts and consultants to help it draft zoning plans harmonised with the southern key economic zone's master plan approved by the Government.
The province has made active efforts to put in place mechanisms and removed investment hurdles that could have prevented it from achieving the "big dreams, big ambitions" Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc wants it to have.
Nguyễn Văn Trình, chairman of the province People's Committee, said: " Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu will try to reduce the time taken for granting investment licences and building permits, modernise customs to reduce clearance time ... and at the same time build a transparent and investor-friendly government."
Nguyễn Hồng Lĩnh, member of the Central Party Committee, secretary of the province Party Committee and chairman of the province People's Council, said: "Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu is committed to building a facilitating government and actively improving policies to turn the province into an attractive place for well-intentioned local and foreign investors.
The province has attracted more than $27 billion worth of foreign investment in over 300 projects and VNĐ250 trillion from Vietnamese firms in nearly 500 projects.


text:
InfoQ Live Feb 22: How do traditional security approaches scale in Cloud Native architectures? Register Now
InfoQ Homepage Articles The Estimation Game - Techniques for Informed Guessing
The Estimation Game - Techniques for Informed Guessing
Sep 26, 2015 13 min read
Carlos Bueno
A big problem with being numbers-driven is that you often don't have the numbers. This is especially true when contemplating designs for systems that don't yet exist. The more cheaply and quickly you can make reasonable estimates of those numbers, the more designs you can consider, the better your final design will be. Fast and cheap answers allow you to explore a larger space of possibilities, kind of like how you can now research the specs and reviews of different cars before you step onto the lot.
This kind of exercise is often called a "Fermi estimation", after a legendary incident in which Enrico Fermi dropped bits of paper into the shockwave of a nuclear test to estimate its yield. There are other old chestnuts like the (now well-retired) interview question about how many left-handed piano tuners collect Social Security.
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The thing left out of puzzle stories is how to actually solve them. There are lots of examples and books, and even some sites that let you play and get feedback, but formal instruction is surprisingly thin. Students seem to be expected to pick it up via some form of osmosis. Estimation is a game, but it's a game of skill. Games of skill have rules for play and strategies to win. In this article we'll try to tease out what some of those strategies are.
Case 1: How many computers does Google own?
Well, what is the biggest thing Google does? Probably web search. Ok, so how much computer power is involved in a web search? How many searches are done per day? You can make a guess at each, multiply them together, and from there you'll fail to account for lots of important things. What about crawling the web in the first place, or the processing involved in building the search index? What about YouTube? What about other products like maps and email? What about other countries?
You can keep going in this vein, but the more unanswered questions you stack up, the more sources of error you'll have. Step back a bit. Addition and multiplication are poor tools for estimation if you don't have a small number of concrete cases. Instead, try subtraction and division. The trick is to find a simple, large, inclusive quantity that completely includes the quantity you want to estimate, and then carve away at it.
Technique 1: Use fundamental units, then subtract and divide.
What do all computers require? Electricity. So if you knew how much electricity Google uses, you'll have completely captured the quantity you're estimating, plus other stuff. So then subtract. Does Google use electricity for things other than computers? Sure they do, for office lighting and such. But it's likely that the energy used for people is tiny compared to the energy for computers. So let's ignore it. What about the energy used for the care and feeding and cooling of their computers, versus the computers themselves? A reasonable guess is 20%.
Technique 2: Define a small number of cases. Ideally, one.
How much electricity does a "Google computer" consume? They are famous for making their own hardware. We can expect they are more efficient than the kind of stuff you can buy in the store. Also, we can expect a high degree of standardization. It's unlikely that the electricity used by their hungriest computer is very different from their leanest. No battalions of three-ton water-cooled mainframes next to piles of itty-bitty Raspberry Pi's. So we'll assume that an "average" Google computer is representative.
Technique 3: Make equivalences to concrete things.
How much electricity does a "typical" computer use? My laptop's charger is rated to 85W. On the opposite range, the power supply on my old gaming computer is rated to 400W. It's reasonable to guess that a powerful but efficient datacenter server, sans graphics card and stuff that consumer PCs come with, drinks 200W of power. That's a nice round number. 5,000 of these 200W computers would consume exactly 1 megawatt (MW). So the formula becomes:
(MW * 0.8) * 5000 = Number of Google Computers
Technique 4: Consider real-world effects appropriate to the scale you're working at.
We're trying to estimate the size of a world-spanning computer cluster used by a large fraction of humanity. At world-wide scale, world-wide effects kick in. For example, people sleep. That means that the demand for "public utility" resources like power, water, telecoms, and yes, even Google, will tend to exhibit a diurnal demand curve: a peak in the afternoon local time, and a trough in the wee hours of the morning.
Furthermore, geography being what it is, the majority of the human race is concentrated in only a few time zones. When the sun is over the Pacific Ocean, most of the world is sleeping. So this diurnal cycle tends to apply across the planet.
This means we can't use average MW. We have to estimate the peak MW draw. The ratio between peak and average demand for consumer services, across a surprisingly wide range of industries, is about 2:1. This phenomenon has all kinds of implications for infrastructure planning. You have to build your dam for the expected peak of the river, not the average. Otherwise, your dam will overflow with every rainstorm.
((Avg MW * 2) * 0.8) * 5000 = Number of Google Computers
This technique of including real-world effects is harder to practice, because it requires specific domain knowledge and an awareness of scale. But it's often very important to have knowledge about various layers of infrastructure at your fingertips, if you are going to design things that fit into that infrastructure. When Randall Munroe tackled the same question of counting Google's computers, he made the mistake of taking just the average power consumption, and lowballed his number by a large factor.
All that's left now is to find out that average MW number. You used to have to trawl local newspaper archives for capacity requests to the local power utilities, and then make guesses about actual present consumption. On top of that, Google is fond of using fictitious names obscure their operations. Today it's all on their website for PR purposes. For 2013, Google says they consumed 3.7 trillion watt-hours of power. This averages to 422 MW of power consumption over the year.
3.7 trillion watt-hours per year / 365 days per year / 24 hours per day = 422,374,429 watts
Assuming that peak-hour consumption is twice that, their peak draw is around 800 MW. Now let's plug it in.
800 * 0.8 * 5000 = 3,200,000
3.2 million servers. Tell that to a Googler and see if they blink.
Technique 5: Make a list, check it twice.
A good estimation uses as few inferential leaps or assumptions as possible. A different info-tease claims that Google's "continuous" power consumption in 2010 was 260 MW. The word "continuous" is ambiguous. Perhaps Google uses servers off-hours to do other kinds of work, like indexing the web or processing video uploads. It's possible they have no peak, but that would be pretty remarkable. However, I think it simply means "average". Checking the original version of their PR page in the Internet Archive shows a claim of 2.26 TWh total power consumption over 2010, which averages out to 257 MW. QED.
But we don't really know, so let's list the assumptions:
People power usage is negligible compared to computers.
The overhead of cooling is 20%.
An average Google computer draws 200W.
Peak power draw is 2:1 of average power draw.
Any error in any of these four assumptions can affect the overall number. If you want to refine your estimate, you can do further research in isolation. Munroe, for example, estimates server draw at 215W. It's also possible that the overhead of cooling is too high. On the other hand, errors in subestimates tend to cancel each other out. You just have to hope you've made an even number of mistakes.
Technique 6: Avoid anchoring effects
This is a hard one to talk about because if I had said something earlier, it would have triggered the phenomenon I wanted to warn you of. It's very easy to bias people's estimates of a number, simply by exposing them to other numbers. When you first read the sentence, "How many servers does Google own?" you probably had a vague feeling of some large quantity, but nothing specific. If instead I had said, "How many servers does Google run, to the nearest thousand?" It's very likely you would have started thinking in terms of thousands, not millions.
The only advice I have here is to avoid, for as long as possible, thinking of a "reasonable" number for your estimate. (While you're at it, never think about pink elephants.) If you can't not think about a number, write it down and all the assumptions you can imagine went into it. At least then you'll be able to revisit and revise.
Technique 7: Use bounding and cross-checking
It also helps to find rough upper and lower bounds on your target number. This gives you a gut-check for the range of the number, and also gives you multiple ways to arrive at the same answer. This is somewhat in conflict with #6. I generally don't look for bounds until I've already made one full chain of reasoning.
What you're looking for is convergence, some kind of agreement between different angles of attack. For example, computers cost money, so follow the money. It appears that Google spent about $7 billion on "infrastructure" in 2013. We'll assume half of that money ($3.5 billion) went to computers and the rest went to buildings, land, fiberoptics, rocketships, robot armies, etc. We'll also assume that each computer costs $2,000, so about 1.8 million computers were bought. Then assume they keep their computers running for 3 years. That suggests they don't have more than 5 or 6 million servers.
What about the lower bound? 3.2 million sounds like a lot. Are we in the ballpark? Well, Microsoft's server fleet is probably smaller than Google's, and they are upfront about their number: one million.
Technique 8: Don't forget time and growth
All of the numbers for our main chain of reasoning come from 2013. How many servers does Google have now? Luckily, we have two data points for power draw, 2010 and 2013. The growth over those three years was 3.7 / 2.26, or about 63%. Your first guess might be that works out to 21% per year, but growth rates are more tricky. When you say "it grows 21% per year for three years" you really mean:
1.21 ** 3 = 1.77
...which is too high. The real number is closer to 18%:
To find the multiple to now (mid-2015), you plug in 18% to the 1.5th power.
3.7 TWh * (1.18 ** 1.5) = 4.7 TWh
3.2 million computers * (1.18 ** 1.5) = 4.1 million computers
But all of that's assuming constant annual growth. Looking again at that infrastructure spend chart, Google spent 7 billion in 2013 and nearly 11 billion in 2014. That's a big bump. Assuming that all computers bought in 2012 or earlier are mostly retired, and that 2015 looks similar to 2014, we can take our cross-check formula and plug it in:
(7 + 11 + 5.5) $billion / 2 / 2,000 = 6 million computers
Technique 9: Don't add false precision.
This second estimate has more fuzzy assumptions in the subtraction and division phases. Maybe Google builds servers for cheaper than $2,000. Maybe they spend more or less than half on computers. It assumes a lot about both the growth and decay rates, and projects away from concrete numbers. That's why I didn't bother with the decimal point. In fact, I feel an urge to fuzz the range to 6 million plus or minus 1 million.
The 3.2 million number is also suspect. The power consumption number we used was totaled over the entire year. Presumably they ended 2013 running more servers than when they started. But there's not a lot to go on guessing the slope of the curve. For that hidden assumption alone we should drop the 0.2 and fuzz the range.
Unless you have a really short chain of assumptions, the best you can hope to get out of these kinds of estimations is an order of magnitude and one significant digit. Two digits would require serious confidence. That's the standard you should hold yourself and others to. If someone says "My spreadsheet predicts 44,815 widget sales in month 6!", get in the habit of mentally editing that to "40-50 thousand". You'll be surprised less often when reality casts its vote.
Case 2: Look at a map!
Estimation isn't just a parlor game, and you never know what domain knowledge will turn out to be useful. I was once responsible for a stream of performance data collected from a very large number of servers scattered around the world. The stream suddenly had a weird bug; about 2% of data was leaking away off into the aether. Worse, it was important experimental data. The control data was coming in fine, funnily enough. Other than that there wasn't much of a pattern.
After lots of tracing and debugging at both ends of the pipeline, I found a little gem. Buried in a few layers of code was something like:
start_experiment($stat_server, $data);
// todo
This system was typical of what you get when you let scientists build large software systems: solid theory, reasonable methodology, but horror-show coding. Stuff like the above snippet wasn't unusual. Errors get swallowed, sure, but if so they'd have been swallowed for years. I repeated the Programmer's Lament: "But nothing's changed!" I couldn't see why the problem of intermittent data loss should start happening out of the blue.
I looked at the implementation of start_experiment() and saw that it used some funky homegrown HTTP client function, which in turn used some funky homegrown network connection function, which had an optional third argument, $timeout. It was never used. However, it reminded me about something I'd noticed subconsciously but hadn't really thought about. The only datacenter with a large amount of data leakage was the new one way up in northern Europe.
The light came on. How much time does it take to send a packet? After some hurried hunting I found the other gem:
$default_conn_timeout = 100; //msec
Our leaky datacenter was about 8,000 kilometers away, as the penguin flies.
However, fiber-optic cables between the US and Europe don't travel that route. (Also, there are no penguins in the North Pole.) For complex reasons, a packet from San Francisco to Stockholm travels across the continental US, exits New York, dives under the Atlantic, enters southern England, pops out the other side to Belgium, and generally rattles around Europe before kicking up north to its final destination. Eyeballing from a cable map that the networking team had in their office, the real route looked to be a bit less than 10,000 kilometers, or 20,000 round-trip.
The speed of light through fiberoptic cable is 200,000km per second. The maximum distance that a TCP packet can travel round-trip in 0.1 seconds was just about the distance we were attempting to span. The internet is impressive, but few things in the world can reliably operate at the edge of physical reality. I changed the timeout to 500 milliseconds, accompanied it with a 500-word explanation, and the problem was fixed.
While bad error-handling compounded this bug and made it harder to find, the root problem lay in a miscalculation of the time it takes to send data over long distances in the real world. The final irony is that the bug's author had a PhD in laser physics.
And that's why you should practice estimation.
Carlos Bueno works at the database company MemSQL. Previously he was a performance engineer at Facebook, Yahoo, and several startups. Carlos is the author of "Lauren Ipsum," a popular children's novel about computer science, and "Mature Optimization," Facebook's manual on performance profiling.
Robust Foundation for Data Pipelines at Scale - Lessons from Netflix
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Microservices — the Letter and the Spirit


Before the end of term we saw our very very special event called Christmas Kings and Queens. This event was a Christmas tea party for local residents aged 65 and above and involved our Year 8 students preparing delicious food, serving tea and cakes, preparing beautiful decorations and buying and wrapping presents. The Music and Drama departments performed many of their Christmas favourites and the hearty singing of carols was enjoyed by all. Seeing the generations come together gave the warmest of feelings to everyone present and it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon which I think represents the spirit of Christmas in an excellent way. My thanks go to [email protected] and LYP for helping our Year 8s deliver such a special occasion. Caitlin in Year 8 explains how she thoroughly enjoyed the day …….
'It was a wonderful day, everyone had so much fun.
All the Year 8s got involved in some way. Whether they made Christmas cards, baked, donated a present, were there as company or provided some other form of entertainment, everyone had a job.
We had ladies and gentlemen from all over Leatherhead and Ashtead join us. Many would have just spent the day at home and were very glad for an opportunity to come out and chat with some new people. Many made a few new friends.
We all put in a lot of effort with the entertainment, lots of us had given up countless lunch times to prepare music and drama performances.
This was just one person's opinion but from the nods of agreement from the table I believe many agreed.


Oliver Christie is an Artificial Intelligence Consultant, Futurist, and Speaker. He is the winner of the Google Moonshot prize, the IBM Watson Prize, and was included in CBR's 10 Influencers Driving AI in Business.
The great promise of AI is that with the right data every single business can be improved, revenue increased and costs reduced. The challenge is where to start with this technology, what to think about and what to build.
In a commercial environment, there are three main approaches to consider when thinking about applying AI.
The first is to use AI to tackle existing business problem, issue or fault. This diverse set of problems include, but are not limited to, cyber-security, fraud, the supply chain, legal and regulatory compliance. It also includes basic human errors in all the many and varied ways this occurs.
There are strong existing solutions in each area, that use AI to better tackle these complex problems. As most of these situations can be clearly defined, the main obstacle is finding a good technology and business fit for any solution. Improved security, reduced fraud, a better supply chain, and less human error all impact on the bottom line of any business.
However, the measured impact will be much more than a simple dollar value. Other areas of the business will also be improved by virtue of better (machine driven) intelligence or insight. Fixing existing problems (using AI) is often the best place to start for most companies as the payback is fast, disruption is minimal and there are good existing solutions.
The second approach is to use AI to optimize existing business processes. Any function within a company can be faster, cheaper or more efficient using the right approach. This is the majority of the AI being discussed for business application at the moment.
Knowing where to start, what AI 'tool' to use and what data is valuable are all non-trivial decisions. Any approach needs to include knowledge of how AI works, together with an idea of the value of information trapped in data, and at the same time an understanding of what questions to ask of the business process. This is where a strong team matters and where technical knowledge must be balanced against business knowledge.
The aim of optimization is to end up producing the most refined (or alpha) version of the business. While the work can be challenging, the end result will have a major impact on the bottom line.
Companies who adopt AI early will have an unfair advantage over the competition. Catching up later will become increasingly difficult as the business learnings (of using the technology) are applied and company thinking evolves.
The third approach is to look towards the future, and the creation of an AI centric corporate model: A business where rich data is used for every decision in the smartest possible way.
The AI that is being built today is different from the past; knowing what is possible now and soon is crucial to any strategy. A clean starting point (for any AI centric model) is also a must, without legacy software, legacy hardware and most important, legacy thinking. The old ways of doing business are increasingly going to be challenged by the next wave of AI.
While an understanding of AI is important, it is also important to ask the right question of the technology in a wider context. What is possible? What can the product or service of the future look like? What matters in tomorrow's society?
How and why a product is made will be different. It will be personal, tailored to improve in narrow situations and more responsive. How service functions, and the value created, also looks different. Intelligence or insight will replace volume or single solution.
The bottom line will also look very different. The information economy, decentralized crypto-currencies, and the sharing economy are all good examples of disruptive thinking, where the legacy approach has been challenged.
The people and companies who can look towards the future in this way will build the next great enterprises. An AI centric world is coming, the only question is are you going to be left behind?
For more insights from AI and finance experts, check out our interactive guide on AI in Finance.


text:
HMS Fawn
Six ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Fawn:
HMS Fawn (1805), a 16-gun brig-corvette, originally the French ship Faune, that Goliath captured in the English Channel in 1805 and that disappears from the records in 1806.
HMS Fawn (1807), an 18-gun sloop-of-war launched in 1807, sold in 1818; she then made seven whaling voyages from 1820 until she was broken up in 1844.
HMS Fawn (1840), a 6-gun brigantine, originally the Portuguese slave ship Caroline purchased in 1840 at Rio de Janeiro, converted in 1842 to a tank (water) vessel, and sold in May 1847 to the Natal Provincial Government.
HMS Fawn (1856), a 17-gun wood screw sloop-of-war launched in 1856, used as a survey ship from 1876 and sold in 1884
HMS Fawn (1897) was a Fawn class destroyer launched in 1897 and sold in 1919
HMS Fawn (A325) was a Bulldog class survey ship launched in 1968 and sold in 1991
HMS Fawn Wikipedia
HMS Fawn (1856)
Scarlet Seas


text:
Йохан Райнхард III фон Ханау () управлява от 1680 до 1736 г. в Графство Ханау-Лихтенберг и от 1712 до 1736 г. и в Графство Ханау-Мюнценберг.

Биография
Роден е на 31 юли 1665 година в Бишофсхайм ам хоен Щег (днес в Райнау). Той е вторият син на граф Йохан Райнхард II фон Ханау-Лихтенберг (1628 – 1666) и на пфалцграфиня Анна Магдалена фон Пфалц-Цвайбрюкен-Биркенфелд (1640 – 1693), дъщеря на пфалцграф Кристиан I фон Пфалц-Биркенфелд-Бишвайлер.

След смъртта на баща му опекунството над него и по-големия му брат Филип Райнхард поемат майка му и чичо му Кристиан II фон Пфалц-Цвайбрюкен-Биркенфелд (1654 – 1717). Брат му Филип управлява от 1680 до 1712 г. в Графство Ханау-Мюнценберг. След смъртта му Йохан го наследява.

Умира на 28 март 1736 година в дворец Филипсруе при Ханау на 70-годишна възраст.

Фамилия
Йохан Райнхард III се жени на 20/30 август 1699 г. за маркграфиня Доротея Фридерика фон Бранденбург-Ансбах (1676 – 1731), дъщеря на Йохан Фридрих, маркграф на Бранденбург-Ансбах. Тя е полусестра на Каролина (1683 – 1737), съпругата на английския крал Джордж II. Двамата имат една дъщеря:
 Шарлота Кристина Магдалена Йохана (1700 – 1726), наследничка, 1717 г. омъжена за наследствения принц Лудвиг VIII от Хесен-Дармщат (1691 – 1768).

Галерия

Литература
 Rudolf Bernges: Aus dem Hofleben des letzten Grafen von Hanau Johann Reinhard. Hanauisches Magazin 11. Hanau 1923.
 Reinhard Dietrich: Die Landesverfassung in dem Hanauischen = Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 34. Hanau 1996. ISBN 3-9801933-6-5
 Samuel Endemann: Reisen der beiden Grafen Philipp Reinhard und Johann Reinhard von Hanau. Hanauisches Magazin 3 (1780), 36., 37., 41., 45.–47. Stück.
 J. G. Lehmann: Urkundliche Geschichte der Grafschaft Hanau-Lichtenberg im unteren Elsasse. 2 Bde., o.O. 1862. ND Pirmasens 1970, S. 512ff.
 Günter Rauch: Hanau und Kassel. Zum Aussterben des Hanauer Grafenhauses. Neues Magazin für Hanauische Geschichte 9 (1987), S. 57 – 70.
 Reinhard Suchier: Genealogie des Hanauer Grafenhauses. Festschrift des Hanauer Geschichtsvereins zu seiner fünfzigjährigen Jubelfeier am 27. August 1894. Hanau 1894.
 Richard Wille: Die letzten Grafen von Hanau-Lichtenberg = Mitteilungen des Hanauer Bezirksvereins für hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde 12. Hanau 1886, S. 56 – 68.
 Ernst Julius Zimmermann: Hanau Stadt und Land. Hanau 1919. ND 1978.

Графове на Ханау-Мюнценберг
Графове на Ханау-Лихтенберг
Дом Ханау
Графове на Ханау

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia