""The basic findings are exciting enough, but you can't help but speculate on what they might mean in a deeper context," says Weliky. "It's one thing to say a ferret's understanding of reality is being reproduced inside his brain, but there's nothing to say that our understanding of the world is accurate. In a way, our neural structure imposes a certain structure on the outside world, and all we know is that at least one other mammalian brain seems to impose the same structure.""(context weblog | real-world processing)

""A lot of people have been interested in what changes in the brains of animals and people when they are learning things," Potter said. "We're interested in getting down into the network and cellular mechanisms, which is hard to do in living animals. And the engineering goal would be to get ideas from this system about how brains compute and process information.""(context weblog | living neural networks: how the neurons compute)

:: note :: . . . the context weblog has always been an incredible source of wonder . . . during my regular surfing never find any other site pointing towards these stories . . . makes me question whether this site can be real or just living in my neural network . . .

W.I.P.

"System Override: In a society where technology is becoming increasingly more important how do we define the differences between man and machine? This Matrix inspired dance piece fuses athletic and acrobatic movement and fight choreography together in a unique look at our struggle for individuality. "(FreeflowDanceCo.)

:: note :: . . . the richly textured Garden of the Spirit "named for the Joe Fafard sculpture" Mind's Garden captived . . . the praire caged within/out the sculpture and the hand processed black&white film haunted like some memory or innerscape all the while danced with the solo artist as her words impressed her body . . . "inner impulse" sculptured into a architecture of the spirit . . . what appears to be a collaboration between TES Dahms, Robin Poitras and Gerald Saul honours the power of the land as it interacts with the territory of the spirit in the sphere of contained place . . .

. . . private . . . downstairs in the storage area beneath the stage . . . that's where I teach . . . occasionally we stream up the vomitoriums into the house onto the stage and even into the light&sound booth . . . most of the time we bunker down safe in our studies . . . the walls concrete around us . . . we are few . . . but a loyal bunch . . . the lights are soft or harsh transforming the space at will . . . sometimes we light fires . . . most of the time there's music . . . and always voices . . . words, words, words . . . matter . . .

"Leon Golub's work is about power and the recurring misuse of power through violence, not as an isolated inhuman phenomenon but as an expression of organised, often state-sponsored, oppression and brutality. A fundamental tension is at the heart of his paintings a tension literally between the figure and the ground of the canvas, between the individual and the group within a painting and also between the role of the artist and the wider background of society. Galub has described his work as "a definition of how power is demonstrated through the body and in human actions, and in our time, how power and stress and political and industrial powers are shown... I' m painting citizens of our society, but I'm putting them through certain kinds of experiences which have affected them. I can describe some of them - Dachau, Vietnam, autamatized war, I would even say such a phrase as Imperial America, in a way.""(Leon Golub)

:: note :: . . . there is a place for this . . . not in our schools I've been told - ordered - commanded . . . our schools demand control and compliance . . .

"how we 'value' culture in the public realm...or how we attach value to creative expression and experience when confronted with the question: 'why should you be supported as an industry, as an organization, as an endeavor, when there are so many other needy causes for the public purse?'"(theArtfulmanager |Value and the arts)

:: note :: . . . an on going discussion . . . another facet of this discussion . . . yesterday faced a decision by an administrator banning Ryga's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe from the high school stage . . . a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of drama . . . is the performing of plays really nothing more than a showcase of talent - a public relations vehicle . . . not! . . .

three generations walk to the river through fields of gold the geese flock to the sandbars through skies of blue our hearts touch each other through souls of desire time stops

. . . that was thanksgiving . . .

from Rayberries in August -
      9Aug04Monday
      by John Clark

start small for a change...back away from the fire

      space ain't going anywhere...time's just comin' and

          goin' - buying beans rice something to smoke - time

aboriginal story in digital media

"pê-âcimohk. Let us tell you a story. For Aboriginal people, storytelling is a way of using metaphor to understand our roles and responsibilities on the planet. Recently, Aboriginal storytellers from across Canada and around the world have been carrying their traditional and contemporary narratives into the world of digital media. Starting from a foundation based on a Cree worldview (nêhiyawin), TELL explores a variety of contemporary issues related to Aboriginal new media storytelling, giving a voice to all our relations by profiling the work of Indigenous storytellers from across North America and the globe."(horizon)

Last Sunday John Livingstone Clark gave the first Temple Reading:

Program:
miles had been a pimp once -
stars like priaire dogs -
leave the mind behind -
running wild -
ecstasy factor -
one last toss of the old fedora -
don't say god -

:: note :: . . . a beautiful afternoon . . . an emotional landscape fused to an always pulsing rhythm . . . the music and spoken word wove a magical place . . .

"I regularly see people making art or running theaters or doing a million other things for virtually no money with no resources on the force of sheer will and hard work. It would take the corporate world untold amounts of money - and human resources - to pull of the things we do. So there you have it."

"Art Workers of the World Unite!"(Culturebot.org | The Art worker's Party)

:: note :: . . . me too . . . but we have to be really careful about the whole Art as business model that seems to so dominate America . . .

"On World Teachers' Day, and on any other day for that matter, the basic message that a teacher needs to receive is quite simple. "We appreciate you"."

"That message cannot be repeated often enough, by those of us in the United Nations family and by those who interact with you every day."

"We highly appreciate you having chosen this profession, one so fundamental to society, and the fact that you continue in it, despite - and often because of - the challenges you face. We value the initiatives you take in opening doors of knowledge and tolerance for each girl and boy. We are aware of what your profession demands of you, of your responsibilities and of your rights. We acknowledge the difficulty of your task, and the fact that it takes professional training and a decent work environment to teach well. We appreciate the care you take to direct your knowledge at children with special needs, and your awareness that all students have individual needs. We value your ability, developed through training and experience, to listen to your students and to shift the responsibility of being a learner from your shoulders to theirs."

"In sum, we appreciate you, and we call upon parents, community leaders, business people, trade unions and government officials, especially educational authorities, to find a way, this World Teachers' Day, to tell you just that, in their own words and in their own way."(Joint Message on the occasion of World Teachers'Day 5 October 2004 UNESCO, ILO, UNDP, UNICEF)

. . . interesting facts (PDF)