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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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In case you haven't heard of mirror neurons, they are very cool. Parts of our brains react the same way whether we are performing an action (say, for example, playing an electric guitar) or whether we are watching someone else perform the same action. Mirror neurons were charismatically and emphatically championed by neurologist Vilyanur S. Ramachandran at edge.org back at the turn of the century (ie: six years ago). A heated exchange followed with animal behaviourist Marc Hauser, anthropologist Milford H. Wolpoff and other experts. I don't know anything about this topic, so each expert completely won my allegiance, in turn. This kind of blow-hard scientific tit-for-tat makes for super entertaining reading! My favourite quote came about after everybody had been shooting off at the mouth about their animals-communicate-like-this and animals-behave-like-that theories. Milford H. Wolpoff reminded us tjat, "...we did not evolve from 'animals', but most directly from a common ancestor with chimpanzees..." Thanks for keeping it real, Milford!
Anyhow... mirror neurons are still big (bigger) news. Edge has an update here, in which Ramachandran, always forthcoming with the florid and entertaining prose, claims that mirror neurons may help us navigate the question of whether we should opt for our real brains over those other hypothetical ones, replicas suspended in vats (yes vats, à la Daniel C. Dennett...), that are programmed to think like "Einstein, Mark Spitz, Bill Gates, Hugh Heffner, and Gandhi, while at the same time preserving your own deeply personal memories and identity." But what if you had more than one brain replica in a vat? Say, five...
The question of whether "you" would continue in multiple parallel brain vats raises issues that come perilously close to the theological notion of souls, but I see no simple way out of the conundrum. Perhaps we need to remain open to the Upanishadic doctrine that the ordinary rules of numerosity and arithmetic, of "one vs. many", or indeed of two-valued, binary yes/no logic, simply doesn't apply to minds — the very notion of a separate "you " or "I" is an illusion, like the passage of time itself.That Ramachandran sure gives Oliver Sacks a run for his money in the Humorous Neurologist category!
We are all merely many reflections in a hall of mirrors of a single cosmic reality (Brahman or "paramatman"). If you find all this too much to swallow just consider the that as you grow older and memories start to fade you may have less in common with, and be less "informationally coupled", to your own youthful self, the chap you once were, than with someone who is now your close personal friend. This is especially true if you consider the barrier-dissolving nature of mirror neurons. There is certain grandeur in this view of life, this enlarged conception of reality, for it is the closest that we humans can come to taking a sip from the well of immortality. (But I fear my colleague Richard Dawkins may suspect me of spiritual leanings of "letting God in through the back door" for saying this.)
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The Images Festival is on now. The program is here. Note: Peggy Anne Berton's excellent film is showing on the 22nd! Also note Deirdre Logue opening tonight at Paul Petro. Tomorrow I'm conducting a marathon gallery tour of the "off screen" projects, meaning stuff that's in galleries rather than in the theatre. Here's the blurb:
A Guided Tour to the Images Festival's Installation Projects
Saturday, April 15, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Meet at 401 Richmond St. West, suite Suite 448
Join Toronto artist, curator writer and IF tour guide Sally McKay for a free guided walking tour of the installation and new media projects exhibited in this year's Images Off Screen.
Here is the schedule. Yes, we will see 14 galleries in 4 hours! Join us for the whole thing, or pick up the tour along the way...
1:00
Images Office (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 448
Welcome (grab a snack)
1:11
Vtape (15min)
401 Richmond, suite 452
Mieke Bal
short artist talk
1:28
Trinity Square Video (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 376
Michael Campbell
1:41
YYZ (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 140
Laiwan and Kristan Horton
1:52
Prefix (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 124
Annika Larsson
2:03
WARC Gallery (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 122
Alison Chun Ya
short artist talk
2:15
A Space (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 110
Mieke Bal and Sadegh Tirafkan
2:26
Gallery 44 (15min)
401 Richmond, suite 120
Tony Cokes, Chris Curreri and Carol Flax
2:42
Wynick/Tuck (10min)
401 Richmond, suite 128
Takehito Koganezawa
2:52
bathroom break (5min)
3:03
Gallery TPW (10min)
80 Spadina, suite 310
Calum Stirling
(walk west on Queen St.)
3:38
Mercer Union (10min)
37 Lisgar St.
Brian Joseph Davis
3:48
Coffee Break (15min)
4:08
InterAccess (10min)
9 Ossington
Hisako Yamakawa
4:19
Paul Petro (20min)
980 Queen St. W
Deirdre Loque
short artist talk
4:42
Edward Day (10min)
952 Queen St. W
John Oswald
4:53
MOCCA (10min)
952 Queen St. W
Tammy Forsythe, Jeremy Shaw and J.R. Carpenter
5:03
the end! but stay at MOCCA as long as you like...
(performance by Tammy Forsythe at 6:00)
Speaking of courtesy and transportation.... its not the fact that car drivers kill us that pisses me off quite so much as the blatant discourtesy of a civic system that consistently dismisses the safety and (gasp!) pleasure of cyclists and pedestrians.
Since we're on the topic, here's one for the "shoulda' said" department. When the Spadina streetcars were backed up in the middle of a weekday (yesterday) and crowds and crowds of people who'd been waiting for ages including an old guy who fell asleep leaning on his crutches were finally, dismally, filing on to the car that finally, slowly pulled up and the TTC worker admonished us, in a well practiced high pitched camp counsellor tone of utter patronising contempt for the pathetic mob to please "take off our backpacks as a courtesy to the other passengers" I should have suggested that as a courtesy to their paying customers they keep the damn streetcars running on time so we didn't have to all bunch up like this. But I didn't cause the doors were closing and I wanted on the car cause I was late for a paying gig. And then of course we crawled along down Spadina which always gets me into a bit of a stew cause of this....(below)...arrrrrrg...how about putting the stops before the light so we don't all have to wait twice at every intersection?...weep....
Boing Boing has a post complaining about the Dia forbidding people to take photographs of The Lightning Field. I'm basically onside with letting people take pictures of art, but Cory Doctorow neglects to mention anything about the fact that The Lightning Field is not just a roadside attraction, but a bona fide work of art made in 1977 by Walter De Maria (who also made The Earth Room and the Broken Kilometer, also owned by Dia). In fact he neglects to mention Walter De Maria at all! If it was my art I'd say go ahead and take pictures, but please give a little credit where credit is due.
UPDATE: Greg made this point much better than I did.
A lot of you will already be reading Baghdad Burning, the "girl blog from Iraq." We just found out about it through Book Ninja. It's really good, sad and stressful, but as I said to Von Bark, it feels like a big relief to hear a voice from inside the situation. An example from March 18:
I’m sitting here trying to think what makes this year, 2006, so much worse than 2005 or 2004. It’s not the outward differences- things such as electricity, water, dilapidated buildings, broken streets and ugly concrete security walls. Those things are disturbing, but they are fixable. Iraqis have proved again and again that countries can be rebuilt. No- it’s not the obvious that fills us with foreboding.
The real fear is the mentality of so many people lately- the rift that seems to have worked it’s way through the very heart of the country, dividing people. It’s disheartening to talk to acquaintances- sophisticated, civilized people- and hear how Sunnis are like this, and Shia are like that… To watch people pick up their things to move to “Sunni neighborhoods” or “Shia neighborhoods”. How did this happen?
I read constantly analyses mostly written by foreigners or Iraqis who’ve been abroad for decades talking about how there was always a divide between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq (which, ironically, only becomes apparent when you're not actually living amongst Iraqis they claim)… but how under a dictator, nobody saw it or nobody wanted to see it. That is simply not true- if there was a divide, it was between the fanatics on both ends. The extreme Shia and extreme Sunnis. Most people simply didn’t go around making friends or socializing with neighbors based on their sect. People didn't care- you could ask that question, but everyone would look at you like you were silly and rude.