Statement

What is Crystalpunk?!

Crystalpunk is a simpleton stampede, a coxcomb carnival, a daydreamers cabal, a platitude-peddling potlatch, a nihilists ambulation on tiptoe, an incantation of the language in the corners of your eyes, a wild farrago of those who run before they can walk, an ABD of being Free from the NOW! NOW! NOW! We wear non-matching socks: that is who we are!

Past

Forum and Tournament.
Are we playing the game or is the game playing us?
Speakers: Christian Freeling, David Parlett and Alex de Voogt.
Part of Impakt Festival 2007.

13 JAN 2007:
The Crystalpunk Bonanza Of Origins

A Six Hour Search for the Origin of Life, Language and the Voices in our Head.
Speakers: Luc Steels, Bruno Marchal, Florian Cramer, Jonathan Kemp, Martin Howse, Otto Rössler.
Small Report Included

Blog/Blogject; My Blog Dreams

This (discontinued) blog/blogject is a Janus head, 2 faced web0.0 monster sharing a memory-system styled on a palimpsest. When the limited memory it has is filled to maximum capacity it needs to reorganise it to make space otherwise it can't store any more new blog entries. In doing this it has to try not to forget the old ones, but this is not always done with much success as memories confabulated over time become increasingly unrecognisable. This making space is done by the blogject and its functioning is modelled on how our brains interleave our memories: by dreaming. The resulting dreams are what the blogject publishes online.

Hacking the Language of Crowds

Just as crystalline-rocks, diamonds or stalagmites tell about the environment producing it, the crowd crystal is shaped in response to the flux of the converging paths inside the crowd. Crowd Crystals are structures from which we can read the crowd because they are formed in response to, and are the result of, crowd agitation. A crowd crystal is like a book produced by automatic writing, telling us about the system that produced it without interference of reason.

Stream of Consciousness

Mask with Chimp Skull
Observed: 11.May.2008

Congo Vili Statue. Hardwood, Monkey Skull, Nails. dated early 19th century. Used for divination purposes. From

Spirit Invested Object of the Chimpanzee Human
Observed: 11.May.2008

Mwisi Gwa So'o is a term referring to 'Spirit Invested object of the Chimpanzee human' that wears the mask. This mask is worn with a animal skin costume and a wig made from Monkey hair suggesting an uncontrollable presence. These dances are performed at funeral and memorial ceremonies which reflect the Hembas ideas on social chaos and death which are opposite to that of the ordered world. From




From

Internet Note
Observed: 09.May.2008

Found on Flickr.

I have a guy in my computer lab who is autistic. He's nonverbal but he makes these drawings on paper that serve as his notes for when he gets on the internet; they also help me figure out what is running through his mind.

From the obvious center image, you can tell that his main interests are muscles and body building. He is very interested and admiring of the male physical body. He has a few other interests as well. See how many you can find in this rich drawing.

I've inverted the drawing for easier viewing.

Pre-Siberian American Aborigines from Australia
Observed: 07.May.2008

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The cave paintings in Serra da Capivara National Park in Brazil are unlike anything else found in Native American art. They one thing they are belived to be linked with is Australian Aboriginal art (see) and the art of the extinct Fuegian people. Hence they are believed to proof of a seperate colonization of America over sea.

PrimatePoetic Tableaux
Observed: 07.May.2008

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PrimatePoetic Mugshots
Observed: 05.May.2008

R U B B I S H but not F L U F F
Observed: 04.May.2008

'The Teachings of Don Juan' is another book I felt I needed to read in order to know what is in it. I Expected it to be bogus and it was, but in a less obvious way than I taught it would be. This book has always been presented not as fiction but as anthropology, as working science. As science it has been discredited from top to bottom: Don Juan has been made up from start to finish and you strongly advised not to smoke the plants Don Juan wants you to smoke. But the aura of science works as a way to make up for the immense tediousness of the book in its descriptions of preparations of drugs and hallucinogenic states. Reading about other people's trips is always the most boring thing. What really preventing me from finishing this is the unlikely relationship between apprentice and teacher. The student, Castenada, is so incredibly stupid, rude, disrespectful and impatient that no teaching shaman would ever put up with it. To the Dustbin!

Another One for the Archives
Observed: 03.May.2008

Marcel Duchamp plays Chess

Graphic Codes by Dennis Tedlock
Observed: 30.Apr.2008

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I assume 'Graphic Codes photographs and text by Dennis Tedlock' to be by the Dennis Tedlock who is famed for his translations from Maya, his very scholarly books about these and his early involvement with Ethnopoetics. Who ever this Dennis is, this is a very interesting (visual) essay about marks, doodles, divination and languages in deep history. The stuff reader of this blog enjoy.

One line makes a worm track.

Two lines make an X.

Three lines make a bird track.

Five lines make the fingers of one hand or the claws of a bear paw.

Four or five lines are enough to figure a bird, a face, a monster.

Four or five attributes are enough to tell one god, one saint from another.

Four or five lines mark the vectors of unseen forces.

Four or five colors of yarn are enough to weave the image of an atomic explosion.

PrimatePoetic Bribe
Observed: 28.Apr.2008

Another brillian quote from RL Garner's Speech of Monkeys. At last something teaching apes something different than English:

It had never been any part of my purpose to teach a monkey to talk; but after I became familiar with the qualities and range of the voice of Moses, I determined to see if he might not be taught to speak a few simple words of human speech. To effect this in the easiest way and shortest time, I carefully observed the movements of his lips and vocal organs in order to select such words for him to try as were best adapted to his ability.

I selected the word mamma, which may be considered almost a universal word of human speech; the French word feu, fire; the German word wie, how; and the native Nkami word nkgwe, mother. Every day I took him on my lap and tried to induce him to say one or more of these words. For a long time he made no effort to learn them; but after some weeks of persistent labor and a bribe of corned beef, he began to see dimly what I wanted him to do. The native word quoted is very similar to one of the sounds of his own speech, which means "good'' or "satisfaction." The vowel element differs in them, and he was not able in the time he was under tuition to change them; but he distinguished them from other words.

In his attempt to say mamma he worked his lips without making any sound, although he really tried to do so. I believe that in the course of time he would have succeeded. He observed the movement of my lips and tried to imitate it, but he seemed to think that the lips alone produced the sound. With feu he succeeded fairly well, except that the consonant element, as he uttered it, resembled "v" more than "f," so that the sound was more like vu, making the ''u" short as in "nut." It was quite as nearly perfect as most people of other tongues ever learn to speak the same word in French, and, if it had been uttered in a sentence, any one knowing that language would recognize it as meaning fire. In his efforts to pronounce wie he always gave the vowel element like German "u" with the umlaut, but the "w" element was more like the English than the German sound of that letter.

Taking into consideration the fact that he was only a little more than a year old, and was in training less than three months, his progress was all that could have been desired, and vastly more than had been hoped for. It is my belief that, had he lived until this time, he would have mastered these and other words of human speech to the satisfaction of the most exacting linguist. If he had only learned one word in a whole lifetime, he would have shown at least that the race is capable of being improved and elevated in some degree.

No, Panbanisha!
Observed: 28.Apr.2008

A bonono talks to caretaker Liz Pugh. An ape is always looking for a deal.

Panbanisha: Milk, sugar.
Liz: No, Panbanisha, I'd get in a lot of trouble if I'd gave you tea with sugar.
Panbanisha: Give milk, sugar.
Liz: No, Panbanisha, I'd get in a lot of trouble.
Panbanisha: Want milk, sugar.
Liz: No, Panbanisha, I'd get in so much trouble. Here's some milk.
Panbanisha: Milk, sugar. Secret.

One More Painting Ape
Observed: 25.Apr.2008

VIA

Down and Out in Mazatec
Observed: 23.Apr.2008

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Wade Davis participating in a sacred Mazatec Indian "magic mushroom" ceremony in Oaxaca, Mexico. What is interesting is that we have covered this ceremony earlier and that in turn Maria Sabina, the curandera (witch-doctor) on record in past post is also important in our current EthnoPoetics craze.

The Speech of Monkeys
Observed: 23.Apr.2008

We have encountered Richard Lynch Garner before. In 1892 he published another Primatepoetic classic: 'Speech of Monkeys'.

One has to admire Garner's common sense. Some long quotes.

The records that I made of various specimens of the simian rce I repeated to myself over and over until I became familiar with them and learned to imitate a few of them, mostly by the use of mechanical devices. After having accomplished this, I returned to Chicago, and went at once to visit a small Capuchin monkey whose record had been my chief study. Standing ear his cage I imitated a sound which I had translated " milk;" but from many tests I concluded it meant "food," which opinion has been somewhat mdified by many later experiments that lead me to believe that he uses it in a still wider sense. It is difficult to find any formula of human speech equivalent to it. While the Capuchin uses it relating tofood and sometimes to drink, I was unable to detect any difference in the sounds. He also seemed to connect the same sound to every kindly office done him and to use it as a kind of " Shibboleth." More recently, however, I have detected in the sound slight changes of inflection under different conditions, until I am now led to believe that the meaning of the word depends somewhat, if not wholly, on its modulation. The phonetic effect is rich and rather flute-like, and the word resembles somewhat the word "who." Its dominant is a pure vocal "u," sounded like "oo" in "too," which has a faint initial "wh," both elements of which are sounded, and the word ends with a vanishing "w." The literal formula by which I would represent it is "wh-oo-w." The word which I have translated "drink" begins with a faint guttural "ch," glides through a sound resembling the French diphthong "eu," and ends with a slight "y" sound, as in "ye."

So far I have found no trace of the English vowels " a, " " i, " or " o, " unless it be in the sound emitted under stress of great alarm or in case of assault, in which I find a close resemblance to the vowel "i" short, as in "it,"

ONE of the most intelligent of all the brown Capuchins that I have ever seen was Nellie, who belonged to a dealer in Washington. When she arrived there I was invited to call and see her. I introduced myself in my usual way, by giving her the sound for food, to which she promptly replied. She was rather informal, and we were soon engaged in a chat on that subject the one above all others that would interest a monkey. On my second visit she was like an old acquaintance, and we had a fine time. On my third visit she allowed me to put my hands into her cage and handle her with impunity. On my next visit I took her out of the cage and we had a real romp. This continued for some days, during which time she would answer me on all occasions when I used the word for food or drink. She had grown quite fond of me, and always recognized me as I entered the door.

...

The uniform expression of the emotions of man and simian is such as to suggest that if thought was developed from emotion and speech was developed from thought, the expressions of emotion were the rudiments from which speech is developed.

A striking point of resemblance between human speech and that of the simian is found in a word which Nellie used to warn me of approaching danger. It is not that sound which I have elsewhere described as the alarm-sound, and which is used only in case of imminent and awful danger, but a sound used in case of remote danger or in announcing something unusual. As nearly as I can represent the sound by letters it would be u e-c-g-k," and with this word I have been warned by these little friends many times since I first heard it from Nellie.

This is only one of a great many points in which the speech of simians coincides with that of man. It is true we have no letters in our alphabet with which to represent the sounds of their speech, nor have we the phonetic equivalence of their speech in our language ; but it is also true that our alphabet does not fully represent or correctly express the entire phonetic range of our own speech ; but the fact that our speech is not founded upon the same phonetic basis, or built up into the same phonetic structures, is no reason that their speech is not as truly speech as our own. That there are no letters in any alphabet which represent the phonetic elements of simian speech is doubtless due to the fact that there has never been any demand for such; but the same genius that invented an alphabet for human speech, actuated by the same motives and led by the same incentives, could as easily invent an alphabet for simian speech. It is not only true that the phonetic elements of our language are not represented by the characters of our alphabet, but the same is true to some extent of our words which do not quite keep pace with human thought. In the higher types of human speech there are thousands of words and ideas which cannot be translated into or expressed by any savage tongue, because no savage ever had use for them and no savage tongue contains their equivalence. The growth of speech is always measured by the growth of mind. They are not always of the same extent, but always bear a common ratio. It is a mental product, and must be equal to the task of coining thoughts into words. It is essential to all social order, and no community could long survive as such without it. It is as much the product of mind and matter as salt is the product of chlorine and sodium.

Comparative Neuroimaging
Observed: 21.Apr.2008

The emergence of language required major modifications in how the brain is wired. Here we see compared the structure of arcuate fasciculus, a large white matter tract, in humans, chimpanzees and macaques. The connections between frontal and temporal lobes in the chimp and macaque are much weaker than in humans, which means less connection with brain areas related to speech. What it suggests is that language is not an organ.

I wanted to Learn but Could not Understand
Observed: 21.Apr.2008

All Great PrimatePoetic quote from Apes, Language, and the Human Mind

Matata clearly possessed the idea of purposeful communication, and I could not escape the impression that she often vocalized to attempt to tell me things - things I did not understand. I know that I certainly vocalized to tell her things that she did not understand. Thus, each of us remained locked into communication systems that worked with our own species but did not work at all between us. I wanted to learn more about her communication system, but she did not know how to teach me. Likewise, she wanted to learn more about my communication system, but I did not know how to teach her. To overcome these barriers between us, I and other scientists endeavored to employ a visual communication system with apes. By pointing to visual symbols, we could avoid the problems inherent in asking apes to produce sounds.

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine [Zines]
Observed: 20.Apr.2008

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein ran thirteen issues from 1978 to 1981. Download them all in high quality from Eclipse project. What is interesting is that the discussions sounds fairly current, perhaps because there is people like Jerome Rothenberg, Kathy Acker and Alan Sondheim contributing. The latter especially explains Nettime babble as following an ancient pattern.

The Eclipse project itself has many other periodic American examples of abstract poetry on offer. Where current projects like Vugg Books find the mustard.

Baby Vision Constantly Expanding
Observed: 18.Apr.2008

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I Want to Hold
Observed: 18.Apr.2008

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Probably Nim in PrimatePoetic action.

Nadia Once More
Observed: 18.Apr.2008

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Nadia, the rock-artist with autism, has been covered before, here is another great picture by her.

Night Monster
Observed: 18.Apr.2008

What Great Expression!

A Diabolical Caricature of Ourselves
Observed: 18.Apr.2008

Konrad Lorenz on us and the chimpanzee. (pic)

An inexorable law of perception prevents us from seeing in the ape, particularly in the chimpanzee, an animal like other animals, and makes us see in its face the human physiognomy. From this point of view, measured by human standards, the chimpanzee of course appears as something horrible, a diabolical caricature of ourselves. In looking at the gorilla or the orang-utan, which are less closely related to us, our judgement is correspondingly less distorted. The heads of the old males may look to us like bizarre devils' masks, impressive and even aesthetically appealing. However, we cannot feel like this about the chimpanzee: he is irresistibly funny and at the same time as common, as vulgar, as no other animal but a debased human being can ever be. This subjective impression is not altogether wrong: there are reasons for supposing that the common ancestor of man and the chimpanzee stood not lower but considerably higher than the chimpanzee does today. Absurd though the contemptuous attitude of man to the chimpanzee may be in itself, its strong emotional content has nevertheless misled several scientists into building up entirely unfounded theories about the origin of man: his evolution from animals is not disputed, but his close relationship to the repulsive chimpanzee is either passed over in a few logical skips or circumvented by sophistic detours.

The chimpanzee, however, is irresistibly funny just because he is so similar to us. What is worse is that in the narrow confinement of zoological gardens, adult chimpanzees degenerate much in the same way as human beings would under comparable circumstances, and give an impression of real dissoluteness and depravity. Even the normal chimp observed in perfect health gives the impression not of an extremely highly evolved animal but rather of a desperate and debased human being.

OPTOPHONEMES
Observed: 17.Apr.2008

Raoul Hausmann writes:

K P'ERI UM L P'ERIOUM
N M' pernounnurn
bpretiberrerrebee onooooooooh gplanpouk
kommpout perikoul
rreeeeeEEErreeeee A
oapderree ringlepadonou nntnou
tnournt

His phonetic poetry is based on letters while Hugo Ball's is based on new words. Which one is 'better'?

gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori
gadjama gramma berida bimbala glandri galassassa laulitalomini
gadji beri bin blassa glassala laula lonni cadorsu sassala bim
gadjama tuffm i zimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban
o katalominai rhinozerossola hopsamen laulitalomini hoooo
gadjama rhinozerossola hopsamen
bluku terullala blaulala loooo

zimzim urullala zimzim urullala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam
elifantolim brussala bulomen brussala bulomen tromtata
velo da bang band affalo purzamai affalo purzamai lengado tor
gadjama bimbalo glandridi glassala zingtata pimpalo ögrögöööö
viola laxato viola zimbrabim viola uli paluji malooo

tuffm im zimbrabim negramai bumbalo negramai bumbalo tuffm i zim
gadjama bimbala oo beri gadjama gaga di gadjama affalo pinx
gaga di bumbalo bumbalo gadjamen
gaga di bling blong
gaga blung

Now compare Jerome Rothenberg with Hausmann

Rothenberg (1979): The question invariably comes up: why are those sounds in the Navajo chants taken as a 'poem'? The answer: because Hugo Ball and Kurt Schwitters (or you name them) opened that domain for us.

Hausmann (1962, history written after it was lived): Around the world, the sounds of music are recognised according to certain vibrations and wavelengths. Sounds are coloured by secondary vibrations and by various timbres that can be ringing or muffled, rounded or jarring, husky or shrill. Drums make no "musical" sound, but just beat out a rhythmic noise. They provide a framework for the overall mixture of colours. A purely phonetic poem not only relies on a series of contradictory vowel and consonant sounds, equivalent to a drumbeat, but also possesses phonemes that can be clear, shrill, sonorous or sighing. It may therefore be considered as a hybrid between music as it is commonly understood in European, Occidental terms and in an Oriental, Asian or African sense.

Toto-Vaca
Observed: 15.Apr.2008

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Tristan Tzara, Toto-Vaca (1920) from/in Maori. Find the tranlation by Piere Joris here.

ka tangi te kivi kivi

ka tangi te moho moho

ka tangi te tike

ka tangi te tike tike he poko anahe to tikoko tikoko

haere i te hara tikoko


ko te taoura te rangi kaouaea

me kave kivhea kaouaea

a-ki te take take no tou

e haou to ia

haou riri to ia

to ia ake te take take no tou

ng



2.

ko ia rimou ha ere

kaouaea totara ha ere

kaouaea poukatea ha ere

kaouaea homa i te tou

kaouaea

khia vhitikia

kaouaea

takou takapou

kaouaea hihi e

haha e

pipi e

tata e

apitia

ha

ko te here ha

ko te here ha

ko te timata

e-ko te tiko pohue

e-ko te aitanga a mata

e-te aitanga ate hoe-manuko



3.

ko aou ko aou hitaoue

make ko te hanga hitaoue

tourouki tourouki paneke paneke oioi te toki kaouaea

takitakina ia

he tikaokao he taraho he pararera ke ke ke ke he parera ke ke ke ke



Picture

Ghost of Chance (Deep Ecology with William Burroughs)
Observed: 15.Apr.2008

I have always had a soft spot for Burroughs' 'Ghost of Chance', a novelette about Captain Mission and the Lemur. On rereading it, it struck me what a good primer this book is to the work of the later Burroughs. Very concise and clear, with good examples of Burroughs scant humor and intelligence. If this is not for you: do not bother to read the rest. What also had my attention is Burroughs use here of Julian Jaynes's theory of the Bicameral mind. But Burroughs takes it in the opposite direction with a metaphor only Burroughs could come up with:

Man sold his soul for time, language, tools, weapons, and dominance. And to make sure he doesn't get out of line, these invaders keep an occupying garrison in his non-dominant brain hemisphere. How else to explain anythinga s biologically disadvantageous as a weak hand? They gave with one hand and took back with the other. Fifty-fifty. What could be fairer than that? Almost anything.

So it seems that the distinguishing factors, language and weak hand, are related. It seems unlikely that language was designed solely to convey information.

A rift is built into the human organism, the rift or cleft between two hemispheres, so any attempt at synthesis must remain unrealizable in human terms. I draw a parallel between this rift separating the two sides of the human body and the rift that divided Madagascar from the mainland of Africa. One side of teh rift drifted into enchanted timeless innocence. The other moved inexorably toward language, time, tool use, weapon use, war, exploitation, and slavery.

It seems that merging the two is not viable, and one is tempted to say, as Brion Gysin did, 'Rub out the Word'.

How Things Become
Observed: 15.Apr.2008

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The following quote from Paul M. Churchland’s Matter and Consciousness, about chemical evolution and how things become from nothing, has been a long favourite. Here it is:

Consider a glass box, full of water with a constant heat source at one end, and a constant heat sink (something to absorb heat energy) at the other. Dissolved in the water is some nitrogen and some carbon dioxide. One end of the box will grow quite hot, but as fast as the fire pours energy into this end of the system, it is conducted away toward the cooler end and out again. The average temperature inside the box is therefore a constant.

Consider the effect this will have on the thin soup inside the box. At the hot end of the box, the high-energy end, the molecules and atoms absorb this extra energy and are raised to excited states. As they drift around the system, these energized parts are free to form high-energy chemical bonds with each other, bonds that would have been statically impossible with the system in global equilibrium. A variety of complex compounds is therefore likely to form and to collect toward the cool end of the system, compounds of greater variety and greater complexity than could have been formed without the constant flux of heat energy. Collectively, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen are capable of literally millions of different chemical combinations. With the heat flux turned on, this partially open or semiclosed system starts vigorously to explore these combinatorial possibilities.

It is easy so see that some kind of competition is taking place inside the box. Some types of molecule are not very stable, and will tend to fall apart soon after formation. Other types are made of sterner stuff, and will hang around for awhile. Other types, though very unstable, may be formed very frequently, and so there will be quite a few of them in the system at any given time. Some types catalyze the formation of their own building blocks, thus enhancing further formation. Other types engage in mutually beneficial catalytic cycles, and form a symbiotic pair of prosperous types. In these ways and others, the various types of molecule compete for dominance of the liquid environment. Those types with high stability and/or high formation rates will form the largest populations.

The typical result of such a process is that the system soon displays a great many instances of a fairly small variety of distinct types of complex, energy-storing molecules. (Which types, from the millions of types possible, actually come to dominate the system is dependent on and highly sensitive to the initial make-up of the soup, and to the flux level.) The system displays an order, and a complexity, and an unbalanced energy distribution that would be unthinkable without the flux of energy through the system. The flux pumps the system. It forces the system away from its initial chaos, and towards the many forms of order and complexity of which it is capable. What was improbable has become inevitable.

Life Among Baboons
Observed: 15.Apr.2008

I did not mind reading this, but I would not recommend it either. It has very little about baboons but has very much of potential about life in Africa. It suffers from being to frivolous, I want hard information not har-hars around the campfire.

Crystalpunk Note 9: Poem for a Chimpanzee
Observed: 11.Apr.2008

waoh aach-aach

ohoh hoo-hoo

eech eech eech eech hoo-hoo

aich-aich huu hoo-hoo

waaa waa waaa waow

waaa waaa waa aach-aach

Huu-huu huu huu eech eech

oo .. oo

huh-huh huh-huh huu-huu aich-aich waaa

uu huh-huh huu-huu aich-aich waaa waoh waoh

waaa waoh waoh aach-aach waaa waaa waaa waaa waaa

Primtive Language
Observed: 10.Apr.2008

Lev Vygotsky's 'Primitive Man and his Behavior'(1930) discusses primitive language in societies and strange enough manages to sound like Pound/Fennolosa on ideogrammatic Chinese! (PIC)

Gatschet writes, “We intend to speak precisely, whereas an Indian draws as he speaks; we classify, he individualizes.” For these reasons, the speech of primitive man, in comparison with our language, truly resembles an endlessly complex, accurate, plastic and photographic description of an event, with the finest details.

The development of language is accordingly characterized by a gradual tendency for this enormous abundance of concrete terms to disappear. The languages of the Australian peoples, for example, have practically no word: denoting general concepts, whereas they are inundated with a huge number of specific terms, painstakingly distinguishing the features and the individuality of objects.

Ayer, referring to the Australians, says, “They have no general words, such as tree, fish, bird, and so on, but exclusively specific terms applicable to each species of tree, fish and bird." The same absence of words for tree, fish and bird, accompanied by the use of proper nouns for all objects and creatures occurs in other primitive peoples.

In the Zambezi region, each piece of higher ground, each hill, knoll and peak in a range, just as each spring, plain or meadow, and each area and place is known by a special name. As Livingston observed, it would take an entire lifetime to decipher the meaning of each of these names.

Such a wealth of vocabulary is directly dependent on the concreteness and preciseness of the language of primitive man. His language corresponds to his memory and his mentality. He photographs and reproduces all of his experience just as precisely as he memorizes it. He does not know how to express himself abstractly and conventionally, as does civilized man.

This means that where a European would use two or three words, primitive Tan sometimes uses ten. In the language of the Ponca Indian tribe, the sentence “a man killed a rabbit” is rendered literally, “man he one alive standing killed deliberately shoot arrow rabbit him one alive sitting.”

This precision is also evident in the definition of certain complex notions. For example, among the Botakud tribe the word “island"’ is rendered by four words, with the following literal meaning; “land water middle is here.” Werner compares this with Pidgin English, in which semi-primitive man renders the word “piano” by the term “box, when it is hit, it shouts.”

Such detailed plastic description is both a big advantage and a serious shortcoming of primitive language. It is a big advantage because this type of language creates a sign almost for each specific object, and with remarkable accuracy gives primitive man virtual duplicates of all the objects he has to deal with. Understandably, therefore, bearing in mind the way of life of primitive man, shifting from such a language to a European language would mean being instantly deprived of a most powerful means of orientation in life.

At the. same time, however, such a language endlessly burdens thinking with a host of details; it does not process the data of experience; it reproduces them in an unabridged form, just as they are in real life. In order to convey the simple thought that a man killed a rabbit, the Indian has to describe the entire scene of the event in fine detail. This means that the words of primitive man have not yet become differentiated from things, and are still closely linked to immediate sensory impressions.

Hippo-Tortoise Pidgin
Observed: 10.Apr.2008

Owen and Mzee were a hippo and a tortoise who bonded like friends or family. (Or were responding according to their genetically imprinted set of behaviours in an unusual situation with a result we humans find funny and endearing.) Reports talk about the formation of a unique pidgin between them:

The two have even developed a sort of vocal communication of their own, Kahumbu said.

The vocalizations are not the honking of hippos or the grunts and hisses of tortoises, but rather a soft whimpering that emanates from one and is mimicked by the other.

"It's very high pitched; definitely not a stomach sound, as some had suggested," Kahumbu said. "They're vocalizing towards each other."

What the animals are trying to communicate is not yet understood, but researchers think it is a contact call made to get the other's attention.

Chimpanzees have Dialects
Observed: 08.Apr.2008

Old news (1994), an article by Meredith Small at NewScientist about dialects in the calls of male Chimpanzees and its deeply social function to establish group identity. Dialects are not genetic but reinforced (learned?) over time. The piece concludes with an overview of the changing view on animal language:

Until the 1970s, scientists assumed that animals - unlike humans - only produced noise in response to some sort of inter-nal emotional state. For example, alarm calls were supposedly a product of high anxiety and fear. It followed that animals were ruled vocally by the more primitive, reflex centres of the brain, while human vocalisations were controlled by the 'higher', rational centres of the brain found in the cerebral cortex.

Mitani's discovery of chimpanzee accents is the latest in a long line of research challenging these assumptions. In 1967, field observations from East Africa showed that the small, green-grey monkeys called vervets have a complex system of alarm calls, one for each major predator: leopard, eagle and large snake. Much more recently, Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth, now of the University of Pennsylvania, proved that vervet monkeys could use their alarm calls referentially. When vervets heard the recording of a particular type of alarm call, they reacted appropriately without any visual sightings of the predator. To a vervet, the leopard alarm call isn't just an uncontrolled scream let out in fear; the sound also carries with it specific information that represents, and warns against, the leopard.

In the 1980s it also became clear that the sounds made by monkeys carry important social information. Harold and Sarah Gouzoules observed a group of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago island off the coast of Puerto Rico to determine whether the monkeys actually 'know' what they hear. The Gouzouleses recorded the screams of juvenile animals in trouble with various opponents, and then played those screams back to their mothers. By carefully monitoring the mothers' responses the researchers could show that the screams denoted the opponent's rank, blood relationship to the screamer, and the quality of the aggressive interaction. When the opponent eliciting the scream was high-ranking and not a relative the mother ran towards the tape speaker.

It Is Not Sacrosanct!
Observed: 07.Apr.2008

How the definition of language is changed to keep animals out of the door. From Richard Byrne’s The Thinking Ape.

… the determination to believe in may ‘unique’ traits of humans is rather pervasive, and definitions of the traits get changed to rule new facts out of court. Language, for instance, used to be defined as a communication system with arbitrary relations between concept and signal pattern; until the deciphering of the dances of bees forced a re-think. Bees encode the distance and compass the direction of a source of honey in their waggle dances, performed in the dark inside the hive. The bearing of the flowers to the sun is encoded in the angle at which the bee dances to the vertical, and the distance is away if measured by the waggle rate, both awkwardly arbitrary relations. So, language became the ability to learn and bestow new relationships, which bees can’t do. But this has been challenged by experiments with captive chimpanzees (challenged, that is, if the idea that language is uniquely human must be sacrosanct). Now ‘real’ language has become equated with syntax, with which chimpanzees have trouble. No doubt this will persist until some animal turns out to use syntax to structure its communication. It looks very much as if preserving human uniqueness has become a goal of its own.

Lumpen Orientalist Magic
Observed: 07.Apr.2008

Over at Kristen Alvanson's blog from Iran, Lumpen Orientalist (what a great name!) you will find a link to his Maskh project, which at current contains 100 spells, diagrams and visual studies of metamorphosis based on the Middle Eastern art of talisman-forging.

How Entho Poetry Dies
Observed: 03.Apr.2008

Robert Louis Stevenson describes the death of literature as a result of the mass-starvation at the hands of European diseases (smallpox etc) in the South Seas. (PIC). For those that remain:

Pleasures are neglected, the dance languishes, the songs are forgotten. It is true that some, and perhaps too many, of them are proscribed; but many remain, if there were spirit to support or to revive them. At the last feast of the Bastille, Stanilao Moanatini shed tears when he beheld the inanimate performance of the dancers. When the people sang for us in Anaho, they must apologize for the smallness of their repertory. They were only young folk present, they said, and it was only the old that knew the songs. The whole body of Marquesan poetry and music was being suffered to die out with a single dispirited generation. The full import is apparent only to one acquainted with other Polynesian races; who knows how the Somoan coins a fresh song for every trifling incident, or who has heard (on Penrhyn, for instance) a band of little stripling maids from eight to twelve keep up their minstrelsy for hours upon a stretch, one song following another without pause.

The Elephant who Paints like a Human
Observed: 02.Apr.2008

Several people mailed me a link to this video of an elephant painting a realistic image of an elephant holding a flower. It is real? We have been looking at elephant art here before and this representational image is unprecedented. How would an elephant move from 'scribbling' to drawing without apparent stages in between? It is even more strange that an elephant would chose to draw/represent itself in such conventional human way. The flower especially seems a very unlikely human touch. Elephants are smart creatures and maybe this video is real (it could also be April fools day) but the image itself is not of the elephants own design, but learned very specifically (and who knows under what appalling conditions) from a human trainer.

Aba Daba Honeymoon
Observed: 02.Apr.2008

The 1914 song Aba Daba Honeymoon must be the first smash hit containing translations from the Congolese dialect of Chimpanzelese into English:

Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"
Said the Chimpie to the Monk,
"Baba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"
Said the Monkey to the Chimp.
All night long they'd chatter away,
All day long there were happy and gay,
Swinging and singing in their hunky-tonkey way.
"Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"
Means "Monk, I love but you."
"Baba, daba, dab," in monkey talk
Means "Chimp, I love you, too."
Then the big baboon one night in June,
He married them and very soon,
They went upon their aba, daba honeymoon.

We Chinese often Fail
Observed: 31.Mar.2008

Discussing the importance of chance to the development of DaDa, Hans Richter in "DADA Art and Anti-Art" quotes Laurens van der Post, the first sentence does a remarkable job in explaining Crystalpunk. And yes Dada turns out to be Chinese in origin too.

We Chinese ... are obsessed with the totality of things ... That is why we often fail in the specific and the practical. We see cause and effect as but two of several aspects of the paramount drive and purpose of life. Cause and effect to us are really by-products of the ultimate purpose which causes and affects all. Chance or what you call 'luck' is another manifestation of the same thing, not just an accidental occurrence unrelated to the general order of events, but also part of a fundamental law of whose workings you are either painfully ignorant or arrogantly contemptuous. We, however, have profound respect for it and are continually studying it and devising methods for divining the nature of this law. We do it instinctively. You see, it is precisely the togetherness of things of things in time, not their apparent unrelatedness in the concrete world which interests us Chinese.

Tristan Tzara's African Art Collection
Observed: 29.Mar.2008

(Image is truncated, click for full size)

Tristan Tzara's love for African Art has been mentioned a few times before here, but these pictures from a book collecting 67 pieces from his collection, really reinforces how deep this fascination went. A copy of the book is not for the poor though.

DADA DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING
Observed: 28.Mar.2008

What an eye-opener: Tristan Tzara's 1918 DaDa manifesto explains the nonsense word DaDa in terms that we now call Bacteriopoetics and Ethnopoetics!

If we consider it futile, and if we don't waste our time over a word that doesn't mean anything... The first thought that comes to these minds is of a bacteriological order: at least to discover its etymological, historical or psychological meaning. We read in the papers that the negroes of the Kroo race call the tail of a sacred cow: DADA. A cube, and a mother, in a certain region of Italy, are called: DADA. The word for a hobby horse, a children's nurse, a double affirmative in Russian and Romanian, is also: DADA. Some learned journalists see it as an art for babies, other Jesuscallingthelittlechildrenuntohim saints see it as a return to an unemotional and noisy primitivism - noise and monotonous. A sensitivity cannot be built on the basis of a word; every sort of construction converges into a boring sort of perfection, a stagnant idea of a golden swamp, a relative human product. A work of art shouldn't be beauty per se, because it is dead; neither gay nor sad, neither light nor dark; it is to rejoice or maltreat individualities to serve them up the cakes of sainted haloes or the sweat of a meandering chase through the atmosphere. A work of art is never beautiful, by decree, objectively, for everyone. Criticism is, therefore, useless; it only exists subjectively, for every individual, and without the slightest general characteristic.

Why is this Nonsense? Quantify!
Observed: 27.Mar.2008

karawane
by hugo ball
14th july 1916

Karawana

jolifanto bambla ô falli bambla
grossiga m'pfa habla horem
égiga goramen
higo bloiko russula huju
hollaka hollala
anlogo bung
blago bung
blago bung
bosso fataka
ü üü ü
schampa wulla wussa ólobo
hej tatta gôrem
eschige zunbada
wulubu ssubudu uluw ssubudu
tumba ba-umf
kusagauma
ba-umf

KoKo The Corker
Observed: 26.Mar.2008

In the field of PrimatePoetics Gorilla Koko is the odd one out: reared in isolation and her skills hyped by her trainer Debbie Bultitude which has led to much media exposure (like this Flickr-Pool ) but little sense. But what a sad background story Koko has.

Daniel Dennet on Vervetese
Observed: 26.Mar.2008

In june 1983 Daniel Dennet visited Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney and their colony of vervet monkeys in Amboseli National Park, in Kenya. Vervets the best studied monkeys when it comes to language and in 'Out of the Armchair and Into the Field' (to be found in his book Brain Children) Dennet describes the science, the language and tells us what the vervets taught him about minds and about the social conditions needed to allow language to bloom. For our purposes the approach he offers to 'translating' vervetese to human is most intriguing:

A vocalization that Robert and Dorothy are currently studying has been dubbed the Moving Into the Open (or MIO) grunt. Shortly before a monkey in a bush moves out into the open, it often gives a MIO grunt. Other monkeys in the bush will often repeat it--spectrographic analysis has not (yet) revealed a clear mark of difference between the initial grunt and this response. If no such echo is made, the original grunter will often stay in the bush for five or ten minutes and then repeat the MIO. Often, when the MIO is echoed by one or more other monkeys, the original grunter will thereupon move cautiously into the open.

But what does the MIO grunt mean? I suggested to Robert and Dorothy that we sit down and make a list of possible translations and see which we could eliminate or support on the basis of evidence already at hand. I started with what seemed to be the most straightforward and obvious possibility:

"I'm going"

"I read you. You're going."

But what would be the use of saying this? Vervets are in fact a taciturn lot, who keep silent most of the time, and are not given to anything that looks like passing the time of day by making obvious remarks. Like E.F. Hutton, when a vervet talks, others listen. "Well, then," I asked, "could it be a request for permission to leave?"

"May I go, please?"

"Yes, you have my permission to go."

This hypothesis could be knocked out if higher ranking vervets ever originated the MIO in the presence of their subordinates. In fact, higher-ranking vervets do tend to move into the open first, so it doesn't seem that MIO is a request for permission. Could it be a command, then?

"Follow me!"

"Aye, Aye, Cap'n."

Not very plausible, Dorothy thought. "Why waste words with such an order when it would seem to go without saying in vervet society that low-ranking animals follow the lead of their superiors? For instance, you would think that there would be a vocalization meaning 'May I?' to be said by a monkey when approaching a dominant in hopes of grooming it. And you'd expect there to be two responses: 'You may' and 'You may not' but there is no sign of any such vocalization. Apparently such interchanges would not be useful enough to be worth the effort. There are gestures and facial expressions which may serve this purpose, but no audible signals."

Perhaps, Dorothy thought, the MIO grunt served simply to acknowledge and share the fear:

"I'm really scared."

"Yes. Me too."

Another interesting possibility was that the grunt helped with coordination of the group's movements:

"Ready for me to go?"

"Ready whenever you are."

A monkey that gives the echo is apt to be the next to leave. Or perhaps even better:

"Coast clear?"

"Coast is clear. We're covering you."

The behavior so far observed is compatible with this reading, which would give the MIO grunt a robust purpose, orienting the monkeys to a task of cooperative vigilance. The responding monkeys do watch the leave-taker and look in the right directions to be keeping an eye out.

"Suppose then, that this is our best candidate hypothesis," I said. "Can we think of anything to look for that would particularly shed light on it?" Among males, competition overshadows cooperation more than among females. Would a male bother giving the MIO if its only company in a bush was another male? Robert had a better idea: suppose a male originated the MIO grunt; would a rival male be devious enough to give a dangerously misleading MIO response when he saw that the originator was about to step into trouble? The likelihood of ever getting any good evidence of this is minuscule, for you would have to observe a case in which Originator didn't see and Responder did see a nearby predator and Responder saw that Originator didn't see the predator. (Otherwise Responder would just waste his credibility and incur the wrath and mistrust of Originator for no gain.) Such a coincidence of conditions must be extremely rare.

The Vervet Monkey Dictionary
Observed: 24.Mar.2008

Vervet Monkey calls are the best studied of all language-like vocalizations in apes. Much finely detailed information can be transmitted throughout a colony, but the interesting part perhaps is that the frequency, nature and act of using this language depends largely on social dynamics (male v female, high-ranking v low-ranking). Vervet's have been observed to 'lie'. The number of lemma's in this dictionary shows how complex this system is. The picture is of a monkey calling but I am not sure it is a vervet.

chutter: This is a low-pitched, monotonal and staccato vocalization. The mouth is closed and the teeth are covered, and this call is emitted by adult females and juveniles. This call is used to express aggressive threat and also is used to solicit support from other group members.

bark: This call is low-pitched and gruff in sound. This call is emitted by adult and subadult males. This call is given towards other vervet monkeys who are fighting, it is emitted to stop the fighting.

intergroup grunt: This call consists of nasal grunts that have a short range. This call is emitted by males in response to seeing members from another group while on patrol of a territory.

squeals and screams: These calls are high-pitched and tend to be piercing. The mouth position varies for these calls and the teeth may be covered or not. These calls are emitted by females and juveniles that are seeking help from threats by an aggressor.

woof-woof: This call is non-tonal, deep, and has a guttural sound. The mouth is closed or slightly opened. This call is emitted by subordinate males to show submission.

wa: This call is a continuous tonal exhalation that occurs with a grimace. This call is emitted by subordinate males to show submission.

woof-wa: This call is a combination of the woof-woof and the wa. This call is emitted by subordinate males to show submission.

long aar: For this vocalization the mouth is slightly open and puckered and the teeth are covered. This call is emitted by females and juveniles in response to trespassing by non-members of the group. This call brings other group members to the area.

rraugh: For this call the mouth is closed or partially opened and the teeth are covered. This call is emitted by yearlings when they approach older members of the group, and is a signal of nonaggression.

teeth-chattering: For this sound the teeth chatter, and is given by adult and subadult males. This is usually given when grooming and sometimes as a response to red-white-and-blue.

progression calls: This call consists of nasal grunts that have a short range, and they are emitted by group members to no specific receiver when the group starts to move. The calls are emitted by all group members over the age of 4.5 months, and the calls tend also to communicate who is giving the call because there some individual variation amongst callers.

purring: This call is very quiet and is given by juveniles when they are play-wrestling.

uh: This call functions as a response to minor predators and is emitted by all group members except infants. This call is low-intensity in nature.

nyow: This call is given in response to the sudden appearance of minor predators and is given by all group members except the juveniles; this call is moderate in intensity.

chirp: This call is low in frequency, and is short and sharp; the mouth is wide open and the teeth are exposed. This call carries for a long distance and is emitted by females and juveniles in response to a major mammalian predator.

rraup: This call is short and rough and not repeated. The call is given by females and juveniles in response to avian predators, and group members respond by leaving the tree tops and/or running into thickets.

threat-alarm bark: This call is like the rraup, but is given repeatedly. This call is emitted by adult and subadult males and serves to communicate an aggressive threat.

rrr: This call is emitted by infants and juveniles to communicate distress to their mothers and/or other group members.

eh, eh: This call is given by infants and juveniles upon a reunion with their mothers. This call is quiet, short, and non-tonal in nature.