Induction and Deduction

PhD. Axel Barceló is a friend I’ve admired since a teenager (yes, I know him since then!) because besides developing a notable career in academy and research, music and graphics; he found the way to be smart and simple and to share such “good vibrations” with everyone around. He is a notable researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas (UNAM) and is also the most recent receiver of the ‘Premio Distinción Universidad Nacional para Jóvenes Académicos’ award. His music, a true sampling expedition into contemporary popular music,  has been published under many record labels including (but not limited to) Discos Konfort and Noiselab… But lets stop this resume-like talking and start the questions.

hZ: How would you describe the passion you feel for all the things you do?
AB: This is really a hard question to answer. As a philosophy student, I studied about “passion”, as well as “enthusiasm” in college, and more recently I have studied the cognitive aspects of emotions; yet I still find it difficult to describe the rush and satisfaction I get from doing philosophy, or music or any of the other things I am passionate about.

hZ:  What is philosophy? Is it something intrinsic to human beings like feeling cold or hunger or is it a learned and developed skill like wine tasting?
AB: As you may know, one of the topics I work on is precisely the difference between innate psychological traits and not-innate ones. Yet, I had never asked myself that question, because I do not see philosophy as a human trait, but as a cultural development that, of course, is based on the development of basic human skills, many of them innate, like the ability to reason in abstract and logical terms or the ability to communicate complex ideas. I do not think there is such a thing as a philosophy instinct, even though I do believe that most philosophical questions (if not all, or at least, all of the substantial ones) can be traced back to the kind of questions that comes naturally to most people, questions like why am I here?, how should I behave?, who should I trust?, what is the purpose of existence?, how can I tell apart what is real and what is not?, etc. Does this mean that philosophy was bound to happen sooner or later? Perhaps, but that still would not make it a natural phenomenon.

hZ: How is philosophy reaching the life of today’s non philosophers?
AB: Most of what we take for granted in our culture (at least for us, Westerners) has at least some deep philosophical roots. Science, democracy, human rights, computers, etc. were all philosophical concepts before becoming everyday realities. Of course, it took Centuries for these ideas to become realities, and many of the people involved were not themselves philosophers, but if you look right at the very birth of most major ideas and concepts of our culture, you will find they come from philosophical theories.

hZ: Five (small) things you enjoy within the everyday.
AB: (i) Novelty. I love that everyday you can meet new people, have or listen to new ideas, find out new facts, learn something new, etc. (ii) Music. Listening to it, making it, promoting it, learning about how it fits in people’s lives. (iii) Sleep. All my life I have had trouble sleeping, so I have learnt the actual value of sleep and also not to take it for granted. (iv) Conversation. Everybody has something interesting in them: some story to tell, some idea to share. Unfortunately, most people do not know which one it is, so conversation is a difficult art to master. I do not presume to have mastered it yet, but I certainly cherish the practice. (v) Food. A sensual pleasure, it is still ok to freely share and enjoy in public, and with others.

hZ: Cellphones with high speed Internet, free sharing of PDFs or music and repositories of collective knowledge such as Wikipedia, how are these technologies changing philosophy?
AB: I still remember when beepers first became popular, it was a common joke to say that only physicians and drug dealers had the actual need of one. It’s hyperbolic, but something similar can be said about cellphones and the like. Philosophy requires patience and dedication, it is slow. On the other hand, philosophy (and science in general) is a communal endeavor and, as such, requires good communication among those involved. With the advent and proliferation of good communication technologies, the everyday practice of philosophy has substantially changed in the last couple of decades. Reserach paper drafts and commentaries are easily exchanged all over the world, debate has been (almost completely) freed from physical constraints, the publication process has become more efficient and, I think, more efficacious as well. E-journals and e-publishing are now a central part of pilosophical research, while projects like philpapers.org and academia.edu are trying to combine the advantages of social networks with the needs of academic research.

hZ: If someone gets interested on philosophy after reading this, where’s the best place to start the journey? And what should you pack in that suit-case?
AB: Fortunately, it has become each day more and more common to find accessible introductions to both contemporary and classic philosophy both in English and Spanish, so there are many places to start an enjoyable journey into philosophy. Since my specialty is contemproary philosophy, I will focus on it:

In 1978, Bryan Edgar McGee hosted a series of interviews to many important philosophers of the time for the BBC TV show “Men of Ideas”, The interviews have been transcribed and published as “Men of Ideas: Some Creators of Contemporary Philosophy”, Oxford University Press, 1982 (reprint), ISBN 0192830341. There is a Spanish translation published by Fondo de Cultura Económica as well.

The opinion pages of The New York Times have a regular section called “The Stone” featuring, in their own description “the writing of contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless. The series moderator is Simon Critchley, chair of the department of philosophy of New School in New York.” Important philosophers of today like Timothy Williamson, Peter Singer and Martha Nussbaum, among others, have written very exciting pieces on topics like Friendship, Science, Imagination, God  and … Lady Gaga.

In 1991, Rick Lewis started editing the excellent non-academic magazine “Philosophy Now“,  featuring news, articles, and columns “aimed at those with an interest in philosophy.” Another good place to start your acquaintance with philosophy, from the pen of great authors like Daniel Dennett and Christopher Norris.

The Royal Institute of Philosophy also publishes the journal THINK, whose central aim, according to their editors, “is to provide to a very wide audience – including schools, colleges and the general public – highly accessible and engaging writing by philosophers pre-eminent in their fields. Think also aims to undermine the popular impression that philosophy is pointless and wholly detached from everyday life.” Not as accessible as “Philosophy Now” or “The Stone”, it still contains some great and elegant pieces on very complex issues like relativism, mental causation, artificial intelligence and the like.

Finally, I would also like to mention “La Pluralidad de los Mundos” a young Mexican blog, run by a crew of very young philosophers who are also trying to bring contemporary philosophy to the general public. Since there are very few similar resources in Spanish, I strongly recommend it.

This, of course, is just a partial list!

Now, on what should you pack? An open, inquisitive mind, patience and imagination for sure. Actually, I also recommend you bring a few friends along.

More Axel is available for your consumption at MySpace and SoundCloud.

Paris, Artificial Intelligence, PDA’s… Oh, la-la.

Time for another interview! This time, with the genius-developer of one of my favorite software applications. A Palm application that, in resume, lets you make music with your sole device: Bhajis Loops. Bhajis Loops is marketed by Chocopoolp, a french brand depicted by a chocolate-eating pink pet octopus and founded by entrepreneur and Ph. D., Olivier Gillet (OG).

Olivier, as well as being an artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and signal-image processing whiz-kid, is an expressive photographer and music lover.

He introduce me to Paris for the first time, now let me introduce him with an interview about technology, ingenuity and music.

hZ: Does music loves technology? Or it’s technology that loves music? What do you think of their affair?
OG: I would say that there are two types of technology… There’s one kind of technology that music loves, it’s the inspired, aesthetic technology that makes beautiful instruments… I often have this lame discussion when people tell me that electronic music is not music because it’s not made with “real instruments” – yes there are still people around there who put forward such arguments. When I ask for a definition of “real instruments”, people tell me that they are not ”bits of technology”, and I reply that the piano, the cello, or later the saxophone were, in their time, technical innovations – frankenstein monsters — that took some time to be accepted as respectable instruments, and that they are “technology” the same way a synth is. There’s as much research, design, innovation in making a piano as there is in making a synth, and piano manufacturers would be indeed sad to know that people don’t view their creations as fine pieces of technology. I don’t see why very classic instruments, like the Prophet 5 or the Minimoog or the Jupiter 8 couldn’t be considered as authentic instruments. Music needs instruments, and the engineering, technology that goes into them. In french we have this word, “lutherie”, the art/craft of making instruments. Music needs lutherie, be it of cellos or Prophet-5s…

But there’s another side of technology… The technology as an ugly geek running after music, trying to seduce her with bling-bling. The technology that produces 40-items long menus in DAWs, VSTi reproducing the front panel of a synth in a pixel-accurate way, Autotune or the sonic Botox of an endless chain of mastering plug-ins. Music might have one-night stands with those guys, but it’s a short term story, a dead end. I think in a couple of years, we’ll all be laughing about all this technology, the same way we smile when looking back at an FM synth or bad virtual analog synths.

hZ: Coca-Cola? Wine? Champagne? What’s the ultimate beverage?
OG: I’m a teetotaler, so Coke. Plus, I have a low tolerance for caffeine - coffee gives me horrible migraines, so Coke provides me with the right amount of energy, an ok-ish caffeine dose and sugarrrrr to get me back on track in the morning. And I love looking lame and cheap instead of the “sophisticated french wine-taster” people happen to assume I am :)

hZ: Imagine the future of data indexation. What’s in it for the average citizen?
OG: If by “data indexation” you mean the kind of content analysis, information retrieval stuff that Google has become a champion of, I would say that the trend is in expanding the field of what we considered as “data” worth indexing. Documents, books, images, videos - it’s pretty natural to think of them as data… and we already index all of those. We do not do it well – you can’t search occurrences of faces or words in youtube videos the same way you can spot occurrences of words in web documents. This is going to be improved, but I don’t think those improvements will be life-changing… From where will the real innovation come from? The state of the physical world is data, too. Somehow, Streetview is an example of this generalization of the concept of data – and I suspect some of the heuristics used in deciding which website to crawl, at which frequency, could as well decide where and how often the black Opel Astras are sent… So the next logical step would be to map the buildings, the vegetation, what’s available in this store, the menus in restaurant, and to make all of this seamlessly searchable. The idea of creating a digital replica of the world is fascinating and we are going towards it, but SF and VR gurus were wrong: the purpose of such of a replica will not be to make people live in it. The purpose will be to make the reality searchable and data-minable.

Another frontier is your personal life, your memories… I can already answer the questions “what was the last song I Iistened to before I defending my PhD?”, or “what was I doing the day Obama was elected” by having a look at Last.fm or Google Calendar ; in a couple of years I will look with nostalgia at my friendfeed posts from 2008 (if they are still available). A digital copy of my life is out there, and the trend is accelerating. I don’t use Facebook but people who do are digitizing a great deal of information about their lives. There’s enough HD space on my desk to record non-stop 1 year of my life on video. It’s not unreasonable to predict that within a decade we’ll have the technology to create a complete digital archive of our lives and activities, and that people will be excited about doing it. We will deal differently with nostalgia (maybe realize that like most weddings, some of our precious memories look cheap and ugly on video).

This also means no more arguments with your wife about what you allegedly said that day. Domestic rows with action replay. I’m surprised there is no hollywood movie about it yet – or maybe I missed it…

hZ: Is there an everyday technology that keeps surprising you always?
OG: Since I am very curious about how stuff works and have always tried to recreate/emulate the technology that fascinates me — to learn how it works — this feeling of surprise often rapidly wears off. Sadly, I don’t remember any lasting “wow” I had recently regarding a piece of technology.

Still, I sometimes wonder what would happen if, following a massive catastrophe, all our existing technology, computers would be destroyed… We would have to rebuild everything from scratch, but
how? Even if we assume that all the blueprints and knowledge is preserved, how to “boostrap” this technological reconstruction? And whenever I think about this I realize to which extent computers / technology are “self-leveraging”. We have great computers because we had – a generation before – great computers to design the chips, simulate the circuits, develop OSes, develop very advanced machines for manufacturing and quality control. You cannot build modern technology without already having slightly inferior technology to design and fabricate it. So I am really amazed by all this – the fact that today’s everyday technologies could not be recreated directly, the fact that we would have to go through all the previous iterations. We are really standing on the shoulders of giants…giants standing on a 4004.

Otherwise, I have always been impressed by buildings, bridges, freeway interchanges. I have no absolutely no idea about how these things are designed, built, and how they stand. They always look to me more complex and mysterious than the most complex software projects – even BigTable.

hZ: “Think outside the box”. How do you do that? What hints would you give to the IT novice?
OG: You don’t really have to think outside of the box if you never allow yourself to stay in a box :) Don’t get used to things, don’t repeat yourself, always try to learn new languages/platforms, try to implement solutions you would have rejected just to learn more about them. Whenever you start a project, always ask yourself whether this is something you really want, or whether you do it just to follow the trend or to make easy money.

hZ:   Was there a special moment in your life that let you knew you were ‘made’ for computers? What else would you liked to do for life?
OG: I don’t remember any particular ‘aha!’ moment. It’s easier to remember moments when I really hated computers and wondered why the only tools to play with data, symbolic reasoning, or to organize abstract ideas were those horrible machines. I use computers because they are the best tools for doing what I am good at, but I don’t really like them the way they are. You ugly machines complaining about missing dependencies, I hate you!

There are two things I would have really loved doing: directing films (as it is a mix of many things I like – writing, photography, designing/organizing stuff, and I love film in general); and designing buildings.

hZ: Five places of Paris that make you remember a song, what do they make you feel or remember?
OG:

  • The platform of the CDG airport RER station
    Belle & Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress.
    I was listening to the album the day my girlfriend arrived for the first time in France. This was a moment I had been waiting for, for a long time. I was feeling all mushy and teenagy and awkward, just like B&S’ music.
  • Rue des Poissonniers
    Micachu – Golden Phone.
    That day I was walking and taking photos in the area, stumbled accross this song I had just downloaded from a music blog and never checked before… and was immediately hooked! It made me super jumpy, like when mario finds a Starman. I played it in loop almost 15 times while walking the street up and down. The photos were not good.
  • Rue d’Alésia
    The Modern Lovers – Walk up the Street.
    I had recently moved to a new apartment and everything went wrong – real horror story. For a couple of days I had no place to stay and spent most of the day walking in the streets. This song says it all.
  • Boulevard Ney & Boulevard McDonald
    Movietone – Star Ruby.
    I remember that during my PhD I was sometimes leaving the lab for 3 or 4hr, during long computations or because I needed time to distance myself from a problem. I usually went walking in random parts of the city, which brought me one cold and grey winter day to this crappy boulevard with parking lots, warehouses, junk yards. The whole album ”The blossom filled streets” by Movietone still made it look beautiful, in a strange, eerie way.
  • Boulevard Suchet
    Pavement – Shady Lane.
    Another long walk – I started in Porte de Saint-Cloud and wanted to walk until I found the solution to a problem… This song popped out of nowhere (well, out of the “shuffle” mode of my ipod) and it was suddenly the only thing I ever wanted to hear at that precise moment. The lyrics didn’t make much sense but at that moment I instantly loved it and didn’t want to hear anything else.

Acrobatic Life

Back in 2006 while on a business trip in Southern Spain, I came to met someone really special. Her name is Malia Walsh (MS) and she is the hottest performing artist I’ve seen, I mean… she is a fire specialist.

Know more about acrobatics as a lifestyle and imagine the feel of flame’s thermal radiation with this 7-question interview about Malia’s career in circus and her vision of life.

hZ: I believe performing arts require a special dose of discipline. How is it involved in your life and in your training?
MS: I train 6 days a week and on top of that I’ll have 4 or 5 gigs, rehearsals and workshops (which are the most exhausting). I usually train for about 4 hours and fill the rest of my day with emails, show proposals, venue inspections, costume stuff and stretching. But I wouldn’t call what I do disciplined…. I’d call it fun.

I love the people I work with and rehearsals are filled with giggles. Training is hard but usually causes you to fall on your arse… more giggles. Teaching is wonderful because of the delight in students faces and gig’s are just the best, weeks worth of work crammed into an explosive 10-min of adrenaline.

hZ: Fire hoop’s, flaming poi and life as a fire girl looks like a risky business. Are your decisions  and personal life so fearless?
MS: I think choosing the arts for a carrier choice is fearless: never knowing when your next pay is coming, artistic block, never having any job security and risk of injury is bloody terrifying. But I love what I do and I’d only be half a person if I had a normal job. I guess I do like to jump off buildings, climb tall tree’s and drive really fast… is that fearless or is just stupidity?

hZ: What about love? Would it be easy for you to start a relationship with an “average” citizen who’s thrills reside on pie charts or excel spreadsheets?
MS: Ahhh love…. that’s a tricky one! I think that if you really love someone you are happy that they are pursuing their dreams, even if it means you don’t see them for a while. As the saying goes distance make the heart grow fonder. As for falling for someone who gets his thrills from spreadsheets, I’m a little nerd at heart. I too get a little excited by excel, I’m overly organized, I’m not very fashionable and I’m secretly a big fan Dr Who, eeeeekkkk!!!

hZ: Have you ever feel isolated while touring across countries?
MS: Touring can be very isolating, it sound very glamourous but you usually live in this little bubble of venues and hotel rooms. You see the sites from a car window as you are on your way to the airport and you are so exhausted from back to back shows. Sounds very depressing right, but the minute I ever feel isolated I roll out of my hotel room and find the closest bar, not to get drunk but to slide up to whoever is there and hear their story. People are amazing and every one has an incredible story, you just gotta get it out of them.

hZ: Has Australia a long heritage on circus stuff? Tell us a little more about it!
MS: Australia has a relatively short circus history compared to Europe and Asia, the first circus only arrived in Oz in the late 1830′s.  The Romans had a sort of circus in the Coliseum, and the Chinese have been doing acrobatics since, well, forever really.

Australia being fairly new to circus has it’s advantages though, we were inspired by some of the greatest Circus’ of the world… the Russians, American Equestrians, Japanese, Italian, etc. Therefore, I think we have a fresh and eclectic take on what circus is to us. We still have a long way to go before we are recognized for our circus, but maybe one day circus, not beer, will be our biggest export. For some examples look up Circus Oz, Acrobat and Snuff Puppets.

hZ: For you, what’s the extra ingredient needed to be an outstanding performer?
MS: Emotion and a story without a doubt. We are all so spoilt these days with outstanding performers that can do the most amazing things with their bodies. Almost everyone has either been to or seen a Cirque du Soleil and they are truly amazing, they make my jaw drop every time. But when I see someone in a small Cabaret pour their heart out onstage making love to a hula hoop or showing how much they hate their brother through the art of juggling, that stuff takes guts and personality, that stuff takes my breath away.

hZ: What’s the oldest image of fire you can find in your memory?
MS: I remember camping in the great Murray River in the Australian outback. I would have been about 5 or 6 and I remember building a great big bond fire with all the fellow campers, it would have been 10 times my height… Huge!

All the kids had balloons for some reason and being a little anarchist I threw mine into the fire. Amazingly, the balloon didn’t pop, the heat of the fire made the balloon soar into the night sky.  Sure enough all the kids who were camping threw all the balloons into the fire watching them fly into the air… hours and hours of fun.

Being so little I knew to stay away from the fire as it was dangerous, but this was the first time I saw how beautiful and powerful it could be… t’was the start of a very long and happy love affair with flames.

Let me introduce you… Tea Shafie

Tea Shafie is the super-tasty artist responsible of my latest release photography. She is based in Stockholm, Sweden and her work is striking, to say the less. Each of her photographs is a complete story that flirts with experimentation but demonstrates loyalty to technique as well. Her work is a reminder of how amazing and provocative life can be if it’s seen with the right amount of sensitivity.
Let me introduce her with this Maple-syrup-flavored interview I prepared.

hZ: How did you discover photography?
TS: I can’t remember exactly when I fell in love with photography or when I had my first camera. It’s always been around in a way. I think my father’s interest for photography infected me at an early age. I use to photograph a lot when I was younger, only film of course. My mum has told stories of a very small version of me running around in the woods with disposable cameras taking pictures of everything and nothing. I do remember once when I was around ten and extremely fascinated by the sun (I still am I guess). I tried photographing the sun… That didn’t go too well.

hZ: Digital or film? Why?
TS: I do a lot of digital stuff, but I have to say film. There’s just something about film… a certain rawness. I also really like the imperfections or defects that result from using old cameras or expired film. It’s like an experiment and a surprise every time a film roll is developed. And a self-made rule that I have is that I never post-process my analog photos

hZ: What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?
TS: I don’t really eat breakfast, I usually just have a cup of coffee in the morning. Not a big cereal-fan when I think of it, but when I was little I used to love the cereals that turned the milk into chocolate milk.

hZ: How do you recognize a moment that worths photographing?
TS: I like surprising myself so I try to photograph moments that surprise me, both physically and emotionally. In terms of people portraits, I’m intrigued by people’s everyday life. The personal and private, the intimate, the unusual things we don’t really notice at first glance but really reveals a lot about someone. That’s why I only photograph people closest to me. Those who trust me and can relax with me and my camera around. With that said, I don’t think or plan too much when I shoot. The spontaneous is the best ingredient.

hZ: How does it feel to live in a place in which daylight can last from 18 hours a day on mid-summer to 6 hours on winter? Is this reflected somehow in your photography?
TS: Yes, I live in Stockholm but I actually come from Umeå, a town pretty far up north and it’s even darker there during the winter (and lighter during the summer when the sun almost doesn’t set at all). But I do think it’s worse in Stockholm since there’s barely any snow during the winter to lighten up the city. Very dark and depressing mood and maybe that somehow reflects in my photos. Also, there’s barely any natural light to play with during these dark periods so I generally tend to photograph less.

hZ: Do you think your photography changes while traveling?
TS: I do take a bit different photos when I travel. The tourist in me is in charge then. But I do take more pictures of hotel-rooms or bathrooms than plain nature or city pictures. To be completely honest I try not to take my camera with me at all when I travel, especially if I’m on vacation. For me it’s more difficult to live in a moment and fully enjoy it when I have my camera with me… kinda hard to describe..  I guess that could be because I feel I have to capture moments instead of living them. That can be very stressful.

hZ: How does Flickr integrate in your workflow?
TS: Oh I’m not sure how to answer this one. It doesn’t really integrate that much in my workflow, it’s more just a forum for showing my photos and getting feedback. I like posting photos there and I really like reading comments or messages that people send to me. But there are times when I hate flickr as well. It can be abit stressful when I feel creatively dead inside, haven’t produced or posted anything there for a while and then people start asking if everything is OK. I guess I should try see it from the bright side though; it’s a way to keep me productive and on-stream.

hZ: How do you overcome unproductive periods of creativity?
TS: I can’t overcome them, they overcome me and it sucks big time! I can’t do anything about those periods, can’t force myself to produce things so what I do instead is I leave it. It might go weeks or months when I don’t touch any camera at all. That’s until I get hit by some kind of inspiration and that usually comes from other peoples creativity. Or just people and their lives. We all live interesting and fascinating lives and that can be very inspiring to me.

hZ: What advice would you give to novice photographers?
TS: Jeez, I don’t know.. I still feel like a novice myself. The day I stop feeling like a beginner is probably the day I will stop photographing. I always try to keep the curious mind alive, the drive to try new things and surprise myself. That doesn’t just apply to photography, it’s more like my perspective on life. I guess that could my advice to others as well.

Now stop reading and start admiring her work at her website teashafie.com or in her Flickr photostream.