well well... this blog came to me at four o'clock one morning as I lay awake.... it's sort of in the genre of the 'list' that seems to be a very important way to express oneself these days...
Anyways: (organised) sports and (organised) religion have a lot in common, good things and bad things. I probably focus on the bad more (and neutral) - it's more fun, here goes
Services once a week (games/ mass)
Places of worship (stadiums/ churches)
Rampant corruption on every level (self explanatory)
Overt moral message, but in practice .... (covering up priests' behaviour/ 'sportmanship' vs. cheating and doping)
Extreme and dangerous followers (hooligans/ suicide bombers)
Incomprehensible jargon
Martyrs and saints
....and followers very sensitive to criticism on both sides, as will probably be evident in recations to this post....
Note: this is just semi-serious and intended to provoke critical thinking - I am fascinated by both sports and religion and I have no doubt that both have benefited mankind in many ways
Friday, December 5, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Fantasy, sf and the avant garde
Maybe this is a repetition, maybe it isn't.
I don't really mind.
I've been designing my game and finishing my master's thesis, working with Björk's Biophilia, teaching and attempting to learn how to box, and much else since my last blog. I've also been enrolled on a few courses at Coursera....
Now I'm doing a course, ModPo, which I enjoy (I'm not very deeply engaged though).... now they are doing the Beats and I enjoy the talks about Ginsberg and Kerouac. And soon they'll be doing something on Cage, a guy that truly intrigues me,
Anyway. It seems very interesting to me how the world of fantasy, sf and gaming seem to have existed completely separate from and often diametrically opposed to avant garde writing, art and poetry; both concerning experiments with language, political radicalism and much else.
It seems to me that my man China Mieville seems to be unusual in forming a bridge between these two worlds. I also think the Icelandic poet and writer Eiríkur Örn Nordahl has roots on both sides, though the fantasy sf element is not very apparent in (what I have read of) his work.
Another example of these cultures meeting up is of course Nordic Larp, which is a very important and interesting phenomenon though it seems still to be pretty obscure.
That's it for now, just like a vague start of something, and then I'll go off on another tangent I'm sure....
I don't really mind.
I've been designing my game and finishing my master's thesis, working with Björk's Biophilia, teaching and attempting to learn how to box, and much else since my last blog. I've also been enrolled on a few courses at Coursera....
Now I'm doing a course, ModPo, which I enjoy (I'm not very deeply engaged though).... now they are doing the Beats and I enjoy the talks about Ginsberg and Kerouac. And soon they'll be doing something on Cage, a guy that truly intrigues me,
Anyway. It seems very interesting to me how the world of fantasy, sf and gaming seem to have existed completely separate from and often diametrically opposed to avant garde writing, art and poetry; both concerning experiments with language, political radicalism and much else.
It seems to me that my man China Mieville seems to be unusual in forming a bridge between these two worlds. I also think the Icelandic poet and writer Eiríkur Örn Nordahl has roots on both sides, though the fantasy sf element is not very apparent in (what I have read of) his work.
Another example of these cultures meeting up is of course Nordic Larp, which is a very important and interesting phenomenon though it seems still to be pretty obscure.
That's it for now, just like a vague start of something, and then I'll go off on another tangent I'm sure....
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Participactor, -student
Here goes - a new blog every couple of months, not so bad I guess. Bad.
I had some trouble deciding whether this one belonged here or in my Icelandic blog on education - it landed here and will therefore be
well at least in English.
I recently had a very interesting artistic and spiritual experience participating in Djöfulgangur, a piece of participatory theatre by the group Kviss Búmm Bang. I have been looking around to see if anything resembling Larp is ongoing in Iceland, and this is the closest I could come.
This will not be a blog on the piece which was very interesting.
Anyways - I asked them afterwards about where their inspiration came from and they mentioned Augusto Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed, he coined the term in the title. An interesting interview with that fascinating character here above.
Finally in connection with my work on my master's thesis on games in education I discovered a little system by Icelandic education theorist Gerður G. Óskarsdóttir where she analysis classroom work according to the level of teacher vs. student control and correspondingly whether projects are open ended or have single given solutions. Finding in Icelandic schools a huge predominance of teacher control and closed assignments. Naturally.
Now - I wonder why when very strong tendencies in art, theatre and education point towards increased democratisation and power to the audience / student - traditional art contexts, theatres and schools remain so thouroughly autocratic for the most part? And (very ironically) participatory forms are avant garde and in some sense form a kind of elitist minority on the fringes of both the world of art and education?
I have some ideas, but still it is mind blowing that a hundred years after Dada and Dewey things have not really changed that much....
More in two months.
Or less.
Or more.
I had some trouble deciding whether this one belonged here or in my Icelandic blog on education - it landed here and will therefore be
well at least in English.
I recently had a very interesting artistic and spiritual experience participating in Djöfulgangur, a piece of participatory theatre by the group Kviss Búmm Bang. I have been looking around to see if anything resembling Larp is ongoing in Iceland, and this is the closest I could come.
This will not be a blog on the piece which was very interesting.
Finally in connection with my work on my master's thesis on games in education I discovered a little system by Icelandic education theorist Gerður G. Óskarsdóttir where she analysis classroom work according to the level of teacher vs. student control and correspondingly whether projects are open ended or have single given solutions. Finding in Icelandic schools a huge predominance of teacher control and closed assignments. Naturally.
Now - I wonder why when very strong tendencies in art, theatre and education point towards increased democratisation and power to the audience / student - traditional art contexts, theatres and schools remain so thouroughly autocratic for the most part? And (very ironically) participatory forms are avant garde and in some sense form a kind of elitist minority on the fringes of both the world of art and education?
I have some ideas, but still it is mind blowing that a hundred years after Dada and Dewey things have not really changed that much....
More in two months.
Or less.
Or more.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Tolkien, technology, philosophy, landscape and whatnot
Watching / listening to this very interesting documentary on JRR Tolkien I had a few thoughts.
1) Tolkien's distrust of technology, bordering on the Luddite, seems to me to be in harmony with Heidegger's ideas in the same area - and also to be in tune with views of high modernists such as TS Eliot. Usually equated with being almost reactionary, the quote Cristopher Tolkien reads from a letter on Tolkien's analysis of how the 'Machine' (remember the Pink Floyd song? ) supposedly saving labour would actually make the work more disgusting and invisible, by locking it inside the factories (and now sending it to distant lands!) is interesting - providing a more nuanced and interesting intellectual image of Tolkien, to me at least.
2) Landscapes - the idea that Tolkien preferred green and cozy English landscapes is countered strongly here, in another quote from a letter - where he confesses to a strong preference for the barren - but first and foremost for space. It seems that he would have felt very much at home in the Icelandic highlands....
3) The story about the way he wrote letters from Father Christmas to his children, keeping their fantasy world alive for years made me feel more at peace with the shoe business in my native land's customs and my enthusiastic participation in those rites (oblique on purpose).
4) The English spoken by Tolkien's children, and indeed all those is involved in this documentary is beautiful.
5) Last but not least I must around to reading Leaf by Niggle.
6) Thank you.
1) Tolkien's distrust of technology, bordering on the Luddite, seems to me to be in harmony with Heidegger's ideas in the same area - and also to be in tune with views of high modernists such as TS Eliot. Usually equated with being almost reactionary, the quote Cristopher Tolkien reads from a letter on Tolkien's analysis of how the 'Machine' (remember the Pink Floyd song? ) supposedly saving labour would actually make the work more disgusting and invisible, by locking it inside the factories (and now sending it to distant lands!) is interesting - providing a more nuanced and interesting intellectual image of Tolkien, to me at least.
2) Landscapes - the idea that Tolkien preferred green and cozy English landscapes is countered strongly here, in another quote from a letter - where he confesses to a strong preference for the barren - but first and foremost for space. It seems that he would have felt very much at home in the Icelandic highlands....
3) The story about the way he wrote letters from Father Christmas to his children, keeping their fantasy world alive for years made me feel more at peace with the shoe business in my native land's customs and my enthusiastic participation in those rites (oblique on purpose).
4) The English spoken by Tolkien's children, and indeed all those is involved in this documentary is beautiful.
5) Last but not least I must around to reading Leaf by Niggle.
6) Thank you.
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