Hi Michael, everyone,
All great!
I’ve been talking with Oana and most recently Omar about the vegetal studies research
From Omar it seems that most of the interested folks are away or too busy in September. And October there are other events (e.g. Listen(n) @ ASU; lighting animation workshop, Einstens Dreams workshop) planned related to Synthesis or TML.
It’s a good idea to do it on a weekly basis. But instead of stretching over a whole semester, how about we concentrate the Marder-based part of the seminar into 1.5 months during a period when people are prepared to really grapple with the Marder.
To take the reading of Marder seriously, I think it’d be necessary to do this in person, or as synchronously as our portals can deliver. And we need time for each one to prepare himself/herself with absorbing related works. I would strongly recommend some of the Aristotle and Goethe. ( to make time we invest worth the investment. )
So our — Oana and my — suggestion is to prep readings and exchange references etc. in vegetal studies stream
now, and do the actual readings of Marder over seven weeks: November 3 through Dec 19.
We recommend
Week 1 Chap 1
Week 2 Chap 2
Week 3-4 Chap 3 & 4
Week 5-6 Chap 4 & 5
Week 7 Papers and Crits (double long session)
It’d be great to aim to deliver some substantial multi-format responses — on the order of a paper, short video, sketches of experiments that really synthesize the insights form the seminar.
Here are two key starting operating rules for this game :
• Avoid allegory — not the depiction of “what plants look like" but how plants grow, and experience dynamical existence.
• Avoid as radically as possible anthropomorphizing .
Perhaps I can come mid November and mid December.
On the other hand my duties this Fall may well be so heavy that it’d be easier if Synthesis hosted this theoretical phase of the joint TML-Synthesis vegetal studies research stream in Phoenix.
Suggestions?
Xin Wei
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Sha Xin Wei, Ph.D. • xinwei@mindspring.com • skype: shaxinwei • +1-650-815-9962
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