A
Abeyance
1. temporary inactivity, cessation, or suspension: Let's hold that problem in abeyance for a while.
2. Law. a state or condition of real property in which title is not as yet vested in a known titleholder: an estate in abeyance.
Abjection - downcast humbling rejection.
Acoustic Ecology – “a relationship, mediated through sound, between living things and their environment.” See bioacoustics.
Agency - power is exerted or an end is achieved.
Alterity - the state or quality of being other - the perspective of the other - Emmanuel Levinas. (See Alterity and Transcendence)
Angel Buggies - "Giant built its own company town complete with a railroad station, school, bungalows, boarding houses, a park with a dance hall, saloon, and barbecue pits. Zuckermann shows me the shell of a concrete block building where nitroglycerine was mixed. After it was mixed and neutralized, it was delivered by small buggies—called "angel buggies" because their cargo could explode and the workers pushing them could be killed, instantly becoming "angels"—to a dynamite mixing house. From brick storage magazines near the Point, the explosives were taken by barge to big ships anchored off of Angel Island. It was the powder companies that planted the eucalyptus forest here, says Zuckermann, with the idea that the trees would help absorb any blasts."
Anschaulichkeit - vividness - a german word with many meanings.
Arbitrary, Arbitrator - judge -making a decision based upon individual discretion rather than law.
Atemporal - unaffected by time.
Atrophy - weakening or lessening of some ability.
Augmented Reality - the overlaying of a virtual world onto your POV of the real world in order to experience both at the same time.
B
Bawd – a house of prostitution – crude language.
Bifurcation - To divide into two parts or branches.
Binarisms - similar to dichotomy – polarization.
Biomass – biological material that can be used for industrial production.
Bricolage – a construction using whatever is at hand. DIY
The Beaufort scale - an empirical measure for describing wind velocity based mainly on observed sea conditions.
Buick – poor man’s Cadillac, Buick McKane, From a Buick 6.
C
Canon - a secular law - an authoritative list - a composition where a melody is repeated by one or more voices.
Camouflage –
Carbon footprint - traces of the effect a person or corporation (or some other human entity or invention) has on the environment. It can be calculated with many circumstances though usually based upon consumption and waste. See carbon footprint calculator.
Carbonfootprint.com - a calculation of the affect you have (the amount of Co2 you produce in a year) on the environment. The results are calculated by a series of questions/answers relating to your activity. It is generally directed to a western audience - with questions realting to size of household, auto use, travel, and energy use.
Contrapuntal, Counterpoint - named from the Renaissance period when musical notation was written using points on a staff (to indicate pitch). Counterpoint is achieved when a melody is played above a specific melody (complimenting and contrasting that melody). See also polyphonic stratification.
Convergence - is it where multiples merge into one or when we lose our ability to differentiate their differences.
D
Dendrochronology - scientific dating based on the analysis of tree-ring growth patterns.
Derecho - "widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced windstorm."
Detritus - loose fragments that result from the wear of time and destruction.
Dialectic - see Socrates and Plato - a systematic reasoning that exposes oppositional ideas in order to seek a resolve to their conflict ñ reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation.
Diaspora - a scattering or sowing of seeds - an ethnic population forced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands - dispersed throughout the world.
Dichotomy - a division into two mutually exclusive groups.
Dis`pa`ri´tion - n. 1. Act of disappearing; disappearance.
Distributed Performance - a performance that occurs simultaneously in multiple locations via computer network interaction.
Dogmatic slumber - allowing yourself to hold a belief system that prevents you from awareness of other points of view.
Dyslogisms - pejorative (pea-brain!).
E
Ecocide – the destruction of an ecosystem by human activity.
Eco-topia - arriving at a place that has a sustainable balance between resource demands and supply - see also a book by E. Callenbach.
Ecovisualization – using data collected from ecological sources in order to provide an alternative representation of the source – new relationships evolve. See Tiffany Holmes
Eddies – small whirlpools.
Eden – the garden from which humankind fell from grace – the beginning of the struggle to control nature – humankind being against nature instead of at one with nature.
Eidetic vision - the ability to observe without "prior beliefs and interpretations" influencing understanding and perception.
Eidetic memory - is the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with great accuracy and in seemingly abundant volume.
Egonomics - concern with your personal finances above all other financial concerns.
Entropy – a steady degradation – the disorganization of a system or society – the degradation of matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity. See Spiral Jetty
Ephemeral - short-lived experience.
Epistemology - the study of the nature or scope on knowledge.
F
G
Gaper’d Delay – a traffic jam cause by commuters slowing down in order to view an accident or incident in the opposing lane of traffic or side street.
Greenwashing – derived from whitewashing – to misappropriate pro-environment language in order to falsely present-advertise an image of environmental awareness, responsibility, or stewardship. See BP logo
H
Heliocentric – belief that the sun in the center of the universe.
Hypnagogic, hypnologic - state between being awake and falling asleep - often including the sensation of paralysis.
Hysteresis - a lagging caused when forces acting upon a body change - is a measurement of an electrical component's change in performance as a result of continued operation. When a component is operated for the first time (for example, a temperature sensor reading temperature from cool to warm), it will follow a particular curve. When you then move the system in the opposite direction (say, change the temperature back to cool), the component will follow a similar curve back to its original state, but slightly displaced from the original curve.
I
Inculcate - teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions.
Identity politics - a political activity of various social movements for self-determination - is it a movement for rights or privileges? - Are marginalized groups united in their self-determination or divided against each other?
Injunctive language - gives instruction leading to direct experience - knowledge.
Instatiate - to represent with a concrete example.
International Harvester - metaphorically representing Empire or genetically modified crops.
Invitro – outside the environment and in an artificial environment.
Invivo – in the living body of an animal or plant.
Involute – curled spiral – curled inward – fetal position – to return to the womb or opposite, the regressive alteration of a body as a result of the aging process. See entropy.
Involution – a reverting to a previous state of existence – to return to the known – relating to anti-gene movement.
J
K
L
Lean manufacturing - "is the production of goods using less of everything compared to mass production: less human effort, less manufacturing space."
Lexicology - a branch of linguistics concerned with the signification and application of words.
Liver – eaten in order to obtain the strength of the defeated – filter of your spirit – emptied out upon the earth.
Locative Media (Locative Aware) - tagging the world around us - Transforms the world into a game board.
See GPS and RFID.
The Long Tail - "Given a large enough availability of choice and a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve, or Pareto distribution, instead of the expected normal distribution curve. This suggests that a market with a high freedom of choice will create a certain degree of inequality by favoring the upper 20% of the items ("hits" or "head") against the other 80% ("non-hits" or "long tail"). "
Lukewarm – Revelation 3:16 – God will spit the lukewarm from his mouth.
M
Machete - "the only truth is the panga [machete]" from a cnn report about violence in Kenya.
Meme - any unit of cultural information that one mind transmits from one mind to another mind - thoughts, ideas, theories, etc. (wikipedia) - a self propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to a gene. Coined by Richard Dawkins.
Methodologies - a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline.
Mnemonic - improving memory - it’s a strategy for encoding information so that recall is easier. (example: using music to learn ABC’s or using an image to represent a word or concept) This concept is important in the arts – specifically in the information arts.
Minerva’s Owl - knowledge, death; the bird takes flight when civilizations are in decline.
Minerva [Latin name for Athena]: Greek Goddess of wisdom.
Owl: Flies around, spreads.
Associated with death (for civilizations).
Messenger of death; not mourner. (dictionary.com)
Mobius strip - Mobius was a German mathematician ñ it is a one sided surface (rectangle) where one end is rotated to its opposite end 180 degrees ñ can be used to show time travel?
Mud – union of earth and water – simultaneously the devourer of life and the womb of life.
N
Natural disaster – The natural pruning of the human bush – eliminating superfluous matter – to cut back to make room for more fruitful growth.
Networked Performance - any approach to a performance that incorporates computer networks in the performance or distribution of the performance. The performance can be in any form or combination of synchronous, asynchronous, ongoing, fixed duration, distributed, local, etc. (turbulence.org) Although, it is usually considered a live event that is network enabled. See Telepresence, Co-location.
Nightjar – a bird with a strange cry that foretells of evil omens – a bird that sucks the utters of goats until they go blind – a goat sucker.
O
Organic –
P
Palindrome - running back again ñ a return to the beginning from the end.
Palpable - capable of being touched, also obvious, plain.
Panacea - remedy for all ills - a cure-all.
Panoptic - everything visible in one view - very broad in scope (the freedictionary.com)
Panopticon – a prison that allows guards to view all prisoners without them knowing – CCTV security cameras – voyeurism – big brother. See Foucault.
Paper trail – a line of defense that you create in order to protect yourself. See Corporate Speak.
Paradigm - a clear example, an archetype, a theoretical framework (merriam-webster online) see Paradigm Shift - a broad change in ways of thinking - a revolution, a transformation, a metamorphosis. Driven by agents of change.
Parallax - An apparent change in the direction of an object, caused by a change in observational position that provides a new line of sight.
Participatory - time-based performance art work that involves the participation of audience members.
Pedagogy - the art, science, and profession of teaching.
Pejorative - implying contempt or disapproval - derogatory.
Performative - see performative utterances - artwork that is performed.
Phenomenology - the study of the development of self-awareness of self – POV – “Intentionality is the key concept by means of which phenomenology attempts to overcome the subject/object dichotomy prevalent in modern philosophy.” This “intention” plays a large and important role in conceptual art practices – and helps explain the importance of Duchampian/Cagean art.
Polemic - the art or practice of inciting disputation or causing controversy - an effort to stir up trouble. See The Yes Men.
Postcolonial - the time following the establishment of independence of a colony from its colonizer. Of interest is the impact that colonialism had on aboriginal people and culture. Or decolonization – desire to cleans the influence cause by colonization.
Positioning - a position you would take in an argument ñ to locate your ideology within a distinct position relative to other.
Positivism - the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge. See scientific method.
Praxis - the exercise or practice of an art.
Primordial – Existing from the beginning. The earliest stage of life.
Primitive – an incredibly subjective and relative term.
Psychogeography - Read some Guy Debord. See Dérive. Ask what this term means in the global age of GPS and virtual spaces.
Q
Quantize - to break into small measurable increments.
Quantum dots - a semiconductor nanostructure - could possibly improve the efficiency of solar panels by passing more electrons.
Quarternion - are a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.
Quiescent - inactivity repose - latent.
Quixotic - foolishly impractical – esp. in pursuit of ideals - rash, lofty, romantic ideas.
Quotidian - common, occurring every day – recurring daily.
R
Rapture - when the spirit is exalted to a knowledge of divine things - according to the Judeo-Christian theology it is the time during Armageddon when the Lord comes to take the faithful into heaven. Far right-wing religious followers are said to desire war in the middle east as it might lead to the rapture.
Rare earth - any group of of similar oxides of metals or a mixture of such oxides occurring together in widely distributed but relatively scarce minerals.
Recursive – referencing oneself - putting a mirror to a mirror, feedback – a way to create an algorithmic program.
Reflexivity - the way which one reflects upon the ways our own values and experiences have shaped our research. (epistemological) this forces us to reflect on assumptions made during the course of research.
Remapping - using one hierarchy of ideas within a system upon another system.
Requisite - required, indispensable .
Rust – the sickness of metal.
S
Self-determination - relates to diaspora - a minority seeking independence from a majority ñ the right to self rule - relates to decolonization.
Seminal – containing seeds for the future.
Simulacra - all that we know as being real is only a simulation of reality - signs of culture and media that create the reality we percieve. (wikipedia) signifiers point to signifieds where reality exists. See Baudrillard.
Six Sigma - "Six Sigma is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company's operational performance by identifying and eliminating "defects" in manufacturing and service-related processes. Commonly defined as 3.4 defects per million opportunities, Six Sigma can be defined and understood at three distinct levels: metric, methodology and philosophy."
Sling-shot – youth – rebel, a symbol of protest, David vs. Goliath. The sling-shot of 1950’s Americana in the back pocket of Dennis the Menace.
Streamrippers - software that captures and saves streaming media.
T
Telematic Art - coined by Roy Ascott to describe the use of computer networks as an artistic medium . see Telematic Embrace.
Telepistemology - study of knowledge acquired at a distance.
Telepresence - the act or process of performing in two places simultaneously - usually through an apparatus that is some form of human/machine system - see Eduardo Kac
Temporal - relating to time separate from space - earthly life - time not eternity - the sequence of a particular time.
Triumvirate - an alliance between three equally powerful leaders.
U
Ubiquitous Computing - the embedding of computers into our lives in ways where we no longer see them as being different from the norm, thereby taking them for granted. Opposite of VR. see Wearables
Ulterior - going beyond what is planned - going beyond what is proper . I often use ulterior incorrectly when I mean alternate.
Uncanny valley - a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost, but not entirely, like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.
V
Vascular – a transport system - network.
Visceral - from the gut - crude, unreasoned emotions.
W
Whispering campaign – a systematic dissemination by word of mouth of derogatory rumors or charges - esp. against a candidate of a political party. |
