Images

Skansen Kronan

Building on the Skansen Krona fortress began in 1641 its main purpose was to defend the city against from Danish invaders. It was completed in 1695. The name means the Crown Fortress and takes its name from the crown on the top. A second fortress has a lion on top and is therefore called the Lion Fortress.

The Krona is on a central hill in the city and has great views of the city. Its main use is as a park for walking the dog, summer picknicks, views of the city and a place to celebrate new years eve.

Blogkartan.

Posted on by mklang

Political Use of Trees

Using trees to form part of a political protest has almost been synonymous with the green movement. Protesters have hugged or chained themselves to trees to prevent them from being sawn down. Protesters have staged sit-ins in them to demonstrate their point. Part of the Swedish protest movement was staged around some Elm trees in a park in central Stockholm (Kungstrådgården). The Elm Battle (12-13 May 1971) was part of a civil disobedience act. To prevent the building of a entrance to a subway station activists (amongst other things) climbed up into the trees. The planned station entrance was moved.

In central Göteborg today this tree has been painted with the text â??think about the homelessâ?? this is not the first tree to sport this text. When the text on an earlier tree began to fade the notice appeared on this tree instead.

Most groups unable to make their voices heard in traditional media have turned to the Internet to attempt to publicise their cause. This protest is about homeless people and by using the tree as a mediun the message also manages to underscore the lack of technology and basic infrastructure homelessness entails.

Posted on by mklang

Banksy’s latest is a comment on the deregulation of state industries. In this graphic case it is an image of the change from the old to the modern British Telecom (BT). This is portrayed by a bleeding old style phone box in Soho (London)

A BT spokesman said: “This is a stunning visual comment on BT’s transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider.” (BBC)

What the BT spokesman failed to mention is the reduction of universal service when follows in the wake of any deregulation. The transformation of a public service company into a modern industry player is not always something to be proud of. The mutilatd phone box has unfortunately already been removed.

Larger image on Banksy’s site.

Posted on by mklang

Fibonacci the Artist

Leonardo Fibonacci (c1175-1250) was travelled widely in Barbary (Algeria), Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily and Provence. In 1200 he returned to Pisa and used the knowledge he had gained on his travels to write Liber abaci in which he introduced the Latin-speaking world to the decimal number system. The first chapter of Part 1 begins:

These are the nine figures of the Indians: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with this sign 0 which in Arabic is called zephirum, any number can be written, as will be demonstrated.

Besides this Fibonacci also took part in mathematical competitions and challenges (these were commonthen). For example, in 1225 Fibonacci took part in a tournament at Pisa ordered by the emperor himself, Frederick II. Competitions could include puzzles such as this:

Beginning with a single pair of rabbits, if every month each productive pair bears a new pair, which becomes productive when they are 1 month old, how many rabbits will there be after n months?

The answer? (xn+1 = xn + xn-1) has become known as the Fibonacci sequence. It begins with 0 and 1. It follows the simple simple rule: Add the last two numbers to get the next.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987,…

Why the interest in Fibonacci today? I was walking down a street in my home town (a street I have often walked on before) and I noticed that someone had decorated a building with the Fibonacci sequence.

Was this art? or is there a deeper meaning? Perhaps even a conspiracy? Decorating buildings using mathematical formulas and principles was hardly the vogue since this house was built!

Posted on by mklang

Guaman Poma

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala wrote his 1200-page book in 1615 Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (New Chronicle and Good Government) to convince King Philip III of Spain to reform Spanish rule in South America. The book includes 398 full-page drawings. Its aim was to provide the Spanish king with an Andean perspective on colonial Peru.

The Royal Danish Library has digitised it and made it available online here. Some background about the manuscript by the editor Rolena Adorno can be found here.

The tenth Inka, Tupac Inka Yupanqui (p. 110)

Posted on by mklang

War and Peace

In an article entitled You and the Atom Bomb, George Orwell wrote about the relationship between military technology and democratic development. National self-determination is, according to Orwell’s technologically deterministic argument, a product of the ability to develop efficient arms.

The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle…Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccansâ??even Tibetansâ??could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one. There are fewer and fewer foci of power. Already, in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only threeâ??ultimately, perhaps, only two. This trend has been obvious for years, and was pointed out by a few observers even before 1914. The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weaponâ??or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fightingâ??not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant. (full article here)

The concept of war and peace has changed since Orwell published this article in Tribune (19 October 1945). Those old enough to have experienced the world wars (either as participants or spectators) claim that we have had peace. This is strange to as I cannot remember a single period in my life when we were not at war with some nation (echoes of Orwell’s 1984?)

This peace is therefore an illusion, a consensual hallucination, if the interpretation of reality claims that we are at war then we are at war. If the claim is that we are at peace then we are at peace. Naturally this does not effect the fact that people are being killed, or that military forces are attacking each other. It just does not mean that we are not living in peacetime.

The atom bomb nicknamed Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki exploded at 11:02 A.M on August 9.
It left an estimated 70,000 dead by the end of 1945.

While living in this myth of peace the threat of all out war remains a threat but in reality war remains based in the use of the rifle or rifle-like weaponry. Since there is no real war in (or with) Afganistan, Iraq, India/Pakistan (Kashmir) or Indonesia (For lists of ongoing conflicts look here and here) but only ‘conflicts’ the struggle remains focused around the rifle.

This is not, as Orwell thought, the technical ability to mass-produce this relatively simple technology but rather the ability to obtain cash or credits to be able to buy small arms (estimated black market trade in small arms range from US$2-10 billion a year). In conflicts such as these it is not the posession of advanced technology that resolves the conflict but rather the money and determination to accept heavy losses.

Posted on by mklang

Street Art & Advertising

Yesterday I saw this poster.

Its an advert for an energy substitute. The basic premise is that many people have a banana in their training bags but the banana is not good enough to help the body get the amounts of carbohydrates and proteins it needs after a workout. Therefore bananas are for monkeys.

While I could argue about the eating habits of monkeys (not that many bananas) that is not what I want to do. The point of this post is to talk about advertising.

The inspiration for this poster has been taken from grafitti – this can be seen by the imitation of stencils and the mock access paint running down the poster. The ad-company has obviously been inspired by street artists, such as Banksy. This is one of Banksy’s works below.

My question is wouldnt it be nice if the commercial use of art in advertising was openly recognised and acknowledged?
Advertisers tend to rely on the outside world for their inspiration but see no need to admit the fact that they are borrowing from a wider culture. I realise that this is asking a lot but shouldnt advertisers acknowledge these sources?

Posted on by mklang

Data Skum

Meaning through translation.

Having a problem with your computer? Use a can of DATA SKUM! Spray your problems away.

Posted on by mklang

Wireless

Our department has formally changed faculty from the Business School to the IT-university. The IT-university students all have laptops with wireless access which makes teaching an interesting experience. Recently a law professor at the University of Memphis banned laptops in class since he argued that the students are not paying attention to the lecture but are more concerned with their notes. Among the problems with connected laptops are that the students are not even concerned with their notes but are more focused on browsing, messaging and mailing.

This is not the point of this post. The point is the classroom of the future needs to be designed with a lot more thought as to the users need for electricity.

The unelegant current solution

Posted on by mklang