Something to think on: "The exciting absence of certainty"

Another turning point ... this is a golden age of error. Photograph: Paul Hardy/Corbis

"The exciting absence of certainty" is a post from Jonathan Jones on At Blog - Art critic with the UK's Guardian. Its a concise comment for the curious who might from time to time ponder String theory or other contemporary fields of scientific thought.

In fact... worthy of sharing for the seeds of thought it ponders on a number of matters in contemporary life. Take a look:

January 20th he writes:

I recently read a book called The Trouble With Physics, by physicist Lee Smolin. I was also reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. No need to worry – this is not one of those blogs where I sound off about a subject like string theory from my unique perspective as an art critic, and enraged string theorists line up to put me right. My theme today is not science but certainty, and the exciting absence of it in our world.

Smolin questions the most ambitious contemporary theories in science. Greene is a champion of those same "string" theories. It looks as if the state of physics is at an interesting point, if it is simultaneously close to the definitive grand theory of everything and – claims Smolin – simultaneously at the edge of an abyss of unknowing.

Which makes it a good image of these times. Ours is essentially a tragic age, wrote DH Lawrence in the early 20th century, so we refuse to take it tragically. Of the early 21st century one might say: ours is essentially an ambiguous age, so we refuse to take it ambiguously.

To look around the world today is to see conflicting certainties everywhere, from the bitter American political discourse blamed by somefor the Tuscon shootings to ... Well, to right here, right now, where online argument sometimes – though far from always – seems like an unwinnable contest between different positions.

In reality, the virtue of blogs and the comments they attract lies in the diversity of opinion in itself: so does the value of democracy. This is surely obvious, yet we do not say it often. It seems it is very difficult to acknowledge that (a) we may be wrong, and (b) the most valuable quality of our culture is the right to be wrong, loudly.

The Russian cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin was brave enough to praise the mess of reality. He espoused dialogue and multiplicity of viewpoint – a "carnivalesque" freedom – as a value in art and life. He wrote in an age when physicists were discovering some perturbing things about the universe, such as the fact that electrons can be in two places at once.

Debate has never been so popular, online and even in the flesh. We may disagree passionately, but what we need to recognise is that it is the free flow of opinion and contradiction that is the cultural achievement. Certainties abound, but they die on the rocks of doubt. Let's be glad that we live in the golden age of error.

"the free flow of opinion and contradiction that is the cultural achievement"

That I think is a good thought for the day.

posted at seed capsules - my new tumblr site

read more here.

Jason Karolak - read more here.

click here

Art does not lie down on the bed that was made for it; it runs away as soon as one says its name; it loves to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what it is called.

Jean Dubuffet

(via ilobanna)

read more here

Marian Bijlenga - read more here.

andren - read more here

so... ambiguity... all these images are posted at seed capsules - my new tumblr blog.

read more here.

On a more personal note.... have been flat out doing a major overhaul of office/studio and living spaces.

Why have I got warranties saved from things that are 25 yrs old and and I no longer own? And and account book from an art-related business I had from 17 years ago? Some of these things I saved from a house fire, endless relocations ... you name it. 

So out with the old and in with the space.

love this quote 

Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it.

Leonardo da Vinci, from Journals, p. 509. (via aubade)

It happens that I presently live in postage-size rooms ... so of course I love this quote. OK ...postage size is an exaggeration.  But there's cerrtainly no room for all the things Ive saved so a radical attempt at decluttering is ongoing till I achieve  a feeling of knowing what exists in every nook and cranny of my abode.

and before I go check out this wonderful story... started by a blogger... with a friend on board and social media thrown in to the mix...

2 days ago I signed on to Baked Relief to offer some help. Started by Danielle Crismani of 

DIGELLA EMPORIUM

ASPIRING MARTHA STEWART STYLE DOMESTIC GODDESS' {WITHOUT THE JAIL SENTENCE}

Danielle, or Digella...yes she's a big fan, decided to bake some cupcakes for volunteers working to sandbag the area near her home before the river rose to flood the city. She blogged about it, and then others came forward offering help. 10 days or so  later she thinks maybe a thousand people are baking and delivering food... plus they started an initiative for people to volunteer to feed a family once a week for months to come. Through twitter, blogging, facebook etc...its created waves of response...and they keep noticing suburbs further out that have been ignored... then finding people to go there with food.... and other things. There is nothing like grass-roots.... and not  waiting for authorities "to do something"! 

Read more by Mel Kettle, the other organsational whiz, on  baked relief  and how this initiative spread like wildfire across Brisbane and beyond. 

Baked relief volunteers going to recovery sites with lunch.

from bakedrelief.org:

Lockyer Feed-a-thon

I took down contacts for the project and will touch base with them in the coming weeks once the roads are open and we can get their safely.

In short, the Lockyer Feed-a-thon project will provide ongoing support to Esk area and Lockyer valley by way of home cooked meals.  With the ongoing support of chefs in commercial kitchens, Baked Relief volunteers and chefs will be cooking and safely storing meals for transportation in refrigerated trucks out to these areas.

For as long as we have finances and for as long as I can run this project I will continue to manage this work. I am hoping for at least 6 months.

Providing a meal to a family affected by floods might not seem like enough, but it shows that we care and it gives them a night off from cooking.

As I always say “Food always tastes better when someone else cooks it”

If you would like to be involved in this project or our other project supporting the Metro areas called Adopt a Family, please go to the website and follow the links.

Some interesting posts I thought you might like

http://digella.blogspot.com/2010/10/country-happens.html

http://digella.blogspot.com/2010/08/farm-life.html

Remember go to website HERE

Ive been emailing another volunteer called Lisa who I've never met - she and I are making lunch for a volunteer spot on sunday. We'll meet at the delivery site. Somehow I think a lot of connections are being forged at the otherwise very difficult time for many ... some amazing volunteer efforts are going on daily... and so much creativitiy. I read of Fisher and Paykel - washing machine manufacturers yesterday setting up temporary washing machine units for the flood affected to wash all their things.

All I hope is that the initiative and involvement thats kicked off here is something we see more of well into the future... So many people said they could not watch any more TV ... they had to go do something.

Well... here's to life beyond TV!

cheers all,

Sophie x

an opal-hearted country, a wilful, lavish land

Mt Warning - a memorable landmark which can be seen from the Pacific Hwy  - was barely visible yesterday driving along in heavy rain

Arriving home last night around 6pm from a 5 days getaway (driving about in continual rain whilst staying on the north coast of NSW) meant I caught the news and was aghast to hear of the most tragic developments in the Queensland floods yet. Sudden and profoundly damaging flash floods had hit the area inland from Brisbane and this morning we are learning of the numbers of missing people and loss that came with it.

Our State's Premier Anna Bligh appeared shaken this morning when presenting current facts on the news... as if stripped to her most human level of being ... nothing of the practiced politician was evident. One saw the gravity she's been hit with. Politics washed away for the moment and utter humanity in its place. There is that mood here at present. It can be a little hard to think of much else. We who feel safe cant help but wonder at this time... 

I went down to my local shops on Racecourse road and chatted to various people... everyone very sad for the loss of life. One wonders about contributing.... giving money yes.. but what else helps I pondered... Lots to think on.

One thing that did come to mind were the words used in the post title..."a wilful, lavish land" ... a line from the very well-loved populist verse "My Country" written by Dorothea Mackeller .

From Wikipedia: "My Country" is an iconic patriotic poem about Australia, written by Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) at the age of 19 while homesick in England. After travelling through Europe extensively with her father during her teenage years she started writing the poem in London in 1904^[1] and re-wrote it several times before her return to Sydney. The poem was first published in the London Spectator in 1908 under the title "Core of My Heart". It was reprinted in many Australian newspapers, quickly becoming well known and establishing Mackellar as a poet.

first draft

The poet

Dorothea Mackellar OBE

A poetess, and third generation Australian who loved Australia and the Australian countryside. She is best remembered for her poem, "My Country", with the immortal line


"I love a sunburnt country"

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar

We learnt this poem as primary school children ...so it is etched into the minds of generations of children in this country and is perhaps been a key foundation in a young person's forming of an active, imaginative, understanding of what it means to live in a place with very particular and harsh weather patterns. Many have ended up in cities and the coast of this land... not keen to settle the interior which can be seen as inhospitable and very remote.... yet right now we are reminded even the places that have been advertised as easy-living environemnts ..."sunny one day, gorgeous the next"... can become inhospitable in certain circumstances.

I remember reading the Jill Ker Conway book below years ago and feeling the intensity of the isolated life of a childhood on a western NSW sheep farm... and the part that the vagaries of nature played in it... namely drought for the most part. Indigenous people are said to have lived here for 60,000 years and one of the distinctive aspects of their culture is the fact they lived entirely 'at one' with the circumstances unique to this continent ... the kinds of extremes Mackellar talks about in 'My Country'  and that play a part in the Ker Conway story (which I very much loved).

The indigenous take on the weather patterns of this land are known to be very complex ... demonstrating a highly attuned understanding of the possible extremes and shifts in climate - with vocabulary that could define rain, for example, into various different kinds of phenomena. As a child growing up on a river town we used to talk of 'Flood rain" ... I imagine the indigenous familiarity with their regions would have known considerable distinguishing features to help them observe what was occurring.

click here to read more

the authors childhood home

 Literature, poetry and history are all there to remind us of those parts of the human experience that we may well fear and loathe and with good reason.... that we may well be forcefully subjected to. The universal thing is that we all at some point are brought close to shocking events - they come in many guises - and we have to find ways to come to terms with them... come what may!  

My mind drifts to the Pakistan floods of last year. Here there are measures to catch people falling through the cracks... some people will still fall through... maybe no insurance ... no access to the resources to get back on their feet. That does happen. But when one thinks of Pakistan... their safety net is not what it is here. Its very humbling... whichever way you look at it!

    

I trawled this site for images earlier! History reminds us we've been here before!

Flood Fire Famine Virtual Exhibition

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold.

My Country, Dorothea Mackellar

In this famous ode to her adopted country written in 1908, Dorothea Mackellar successfully captures the spirit of Australians battling a hostile environment.

Australia is a land of harsh climatic extremes – several series held at Queensland State Archives document the havoc caused by flood, fire and famine in Queensland. The records also reveal attempts by successive governments to prevent, or at least mitigate the devastation wrecked by unpredictable weather patterns and the forces of nature.

Photograph taken from New Farm toward Boundary Street with the St. Paul's Presbyterian Church on the right.

Men in boats near the Oriental Mills Building in Brisbane. The water level is thigh high on the man in the centre of the photograph.

Photograph taken during the Brisbane flood of 1974.

Campbell Street