"(8) in some sort of conceptual limbo,"
July 2024. What is there just before the concept is formed? Where and how should I begin? What is this feeling of beginning anew?
I'm working as little as possible to have as much free time as possible. I'm exploring a different area of the scientific literature every 4-8 weeks. I have loads of interests across industries and disciplines. Mnemonics has provided me with orientation. I'm eager to connect the dots, attentively waiting for and creating the through-line.
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This project is primarily inspired by Sam Gershman's "The molecular memory code and synaptic plasticity: A synthesis" (2023), Mike Levin's "Self-Improvising Memory" (2024) and "Bioelectric networks" (2023), Jeremy Gunawardena's "Learning Outside the Brain" (2022), staibdance's Root Theory workshop (2023) and Ararat (2023), and in part by numerous other sources over the last couple of years.​​​​​​​
"(10) watching myself search for structure,"
November 2023. This is a reflection on The Essential Tension (1977) and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) by Thomas Kühn as well as a translated copy of Paul Hoyningen-Huene's Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions (1993).
At the time, I was curious about applying Kuhn's ideas on conceptual change and development into psychology. How does the human mind manage the risk of novel information? What is the fabric of a worldview? Is there a relationship between intrinsic curiosity and the allostatic regulation of this worldview?​
"(2) The feelings of incoherence"
September 2023. The research for "(2) the feelings of incoherence" reflects on distance, the awareness of distance, and the subjective experience of something being out-of-place. How does the mind orient itself before tackling a new problem? This is primarily a reflection on How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. At the time, I was also reading "Self-orienting in human and machine learning" by De Freitas et al. as well as neighboring self-orientation papers.
"(1) What are the conditions for divergent thought?"
In collaboration with movement artists Kendall Ramirez and Faith Fidgeon, the performance of "Iteration 2" lasted two hours; every 15 minutes the choreography would loop, which is when I would switch to a different writing topic. How is my perception of the choreography in loop N influenced by my memories of loops 1, 2, ..., N-1? How is my current worldview shaped by my previous loops around the sun? This research created the conditions for my deep dive into mnemonics. But it was a delicate mixture of shared grief, graduation overwhelm, and the excitement of budding friendships that created the conditions for this initial research. Trained exclusively in math and science, I never would have thought to find myself involved in such a project. What are the conditions for divergent thought?
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"Iteration 2" was performed in April 2022 at the Univ. of North Carolina School for the Arts. In "Iteration 3" my role was dramaturg. Here, we tied in threads related to emotional distancing and the absurd things we do while in grief. "Iteration 3" was performed n April 2023 at the Windmill Arts Center in Atlanta.
** this video contains nudity
** this video contains nudity