Category: about

Categories
about

An art oriented background

As various kinds of cultural imaginations oriented practices, art escapes through ports.
Traditionally, art ports, aren’t all to different from the Whitney museum’s website section for internet oriented art – “art-port”.
Therefore we can say that art linked practices escape theaters, galleries, museums, festivals and such like. A cinema may come to allow certain films to escape into a wilderness of human culture. In the example of theatres – with some similarities shared by cinemas, galleries, or biennials – we get ports that are seemingly oblivious to the content they allow to get spewed. A theatre may one day port a puppet show like “Shakes and Shav” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakes_versus_Shav), a standup comedian by night, and on another occasion – a film may be presented as well.

(VC does oposite – PORT that is general stuff may find a hard time with. We use specific materials, specific shapes, manners and so on to get into a general and abstract aesthetics spewed.)

Unlike a general kind of ports, the ViromeCaravan offers a different porting dynamics and sequences. Instead of operating as a shell through which various kinds of content is given an escape –
through the ViromeCaravan we get a sequence of frictions that might – immediately, at some other time, or not at all – spew aesthetic connected materials that are yet to be imagined. Aesthetics that could come only through such and such particular circumstantial circumstances, that we can not – nor need to – foretell.
The ViromeCaravan comes as a port through which some kind of art, an art as an imaginal aesthetic language –
is risked to never escape, nor live and evolve.
(Therefore, for example, all photos and clips are done by people who are not directly involved. They are people who pass by, have some kind of a say, or indeed – use ViromeCaravan to do their own stuff.)

Such an approach to documentation comes with risks. A few of these risks include:
an aesthetic language may never come to escape.
since there are texts to do with ViromeCaravan, there is an attempt to write as a way that connects rather than merely depict, document or describe. Therefore language throughout this website will read slightly weird, unfamiliar and strange. A language that will provoke a fair few thoughts like:
Why write this in such and such way? It sounds awkward!

The difference between rituals, celebrations and activities that may offer change – is within the question of risk taking.

With a personal tone, yes, even physically i may get injured, and the whole structure could very well break too 😉 .

The specific idea of ViromeCaravan evolved in me through questions of artistic oriented practices in connection with Covid19.

Connecting physical movement along terrains with frictions, texts, sharing and aesthetic questions, has a history in a few activities I got involved with.

      • For Example,

Skateboarding between Brasilia and Rio, from Brighton to London, from Brighton to Brussels, and from an airport and a gallery in Palestine. In another process, moving like a Mzungu (an east african term for a “hobo” used to describe Europeans) in Silecia, Poland.

To find out more –
Get in touch

Send your own PersonalBows –
via PersonalBows form.

Categories
about

Virus oriented background?

Viruses don’t push, need no enforcement power before entering cells. Viruses simply wait for environmental dynamics to afford them an entrance.
A virus, like a vampire (Let_the_Right_One_In), requires to be let in.

Cells afford a given virus an entry since the particular shape of that virus looks friendly and familiar. The shape is like a password held by someone other than an account holder. A cell considers the dimensions of such and such virus to be correct, like software may consider a password and user name as correct – and may afford an entrance to whoever presents them to some database. When an entity enters, they may please themselves with the data.
Once a virus has been afforded into a cell, they please themselves indeed – when cells have no way to afford such viral pleasures – we get into a tricky ill dynamics for bodies as wholes.

Hopefully the ViromeCaravan will not upset people intentionally. However, it’s patently clear that circumstances may bring possible un-ease if not some kind of an upset.
For example, opening up the surface for hosting all sorts of reflective texts could upset some humans in various circumstances.
(Indeed, some people found birds’ poo bit of a challenge.)
Upsetting others isn’t intentional, however – it’s one of the risks needed to be taken and negotiated with, IMHO.

The ViromeCaravan moves along terrains via questions of affordance that connect directly with size, shape, weight, possible speeds, caravan’s materiality, the way of pulling, my body and of-course – environmental altering conditions
Questions of How and What certain motions this way or another may come allowed.
For example:
If a passage becomes too narrow – we need to go back, or find a passage whose dimensions afford a way through.
Moving with winds’ directions (eg A western wind may afford the caravan moving eastwards), terrain geography (eg A steep climb may not afford moving up), human dynamics (eg at some places a stop may not be allowed, or wisely taken), and possibly other elements that will negotiate and evolve the ViromeCaravan’s movements.

Via the perspective of how such and such dynamic effortlessly allows some movement range rather than impose restrictions –
we get to focus on ways of moving-on through – in-spite of borders, laws and rules.
The ViromeCaravans’ motions are negotiative.Motion is in-spite of restrictions, rather than defined by them. Like hope in-spite of anxiety through a harsh period is a negotiation to survive and thrive after the hardship – rather than being defined by such times.
(This connects with a notion of aesthetics through affordance as a cultural wilderness. Consider a life that comes infinitely wild rather than spontaneously legislated –
since how else could living creatures fail, like viruses, to stop evolving?)

The ViromeCaravan has frictions with all sorts of dynamics between elements. Between plants, animals (incl. humans), and environmental, architectural, physical, mechanical, chemical – as well as imaginal and reflective elements.
Frictions will be offered to leave their marks on the caravan’s body through writing PersonalBows.
These PersonalBows combine dispersion and refraction with any given reflection.
(Diagrammatic meditations on any given notion.)

When viruses are afforded an entrance into a cell and multiply inside, dna from that viral infection creates the genetic residues that makeup viromes.

Traveling allows the ViromeCaravan to collect, spread, recompose and evolve such “PersonalBows” kind of reflections.
The caravan’s body has various kinds of reflective materials and is made curved. (Reflections are topologically curvatures.)

Writing on the body of the caravan leaves marks on the corrugated plastic, the various reflective surfaces, and this website. PersonalBows that make it onto the website, are themselves allowed to do that by who ever offered them, at times come as images – others as text. This way we get to reflect upon a wider question that the ViromeCaravan is involved with – Documentations.
(the materials which make the body of the caravan have various reflective properties, like the shiny bits.).

Categories
about

About this site?

An overview
The site operates as part of, an element in ViromeCaravan. The website will offer ways to connect with the caravan itself – via stuff like:
the tool to send PersonalBows
the contact form (any questions, remarks, thoughts, disses etc. – most welcome 🙂 )
the news section will bring notices that may seem to come relevant for possible ways to evolve dynamics that connect, link and allow ViromeCaravan’s journey.
the fyi – has texts and images About ViromeCaravan.

While using the term Experimental may sound like somewhere between
Possible and Plausible
taking a short and violent route OUT of any rigorous critique, as sometimes happens –
the experimentation here comes as part of risk taking. The risk of doing mistakes with the caravan begins with physical elements – as the body may break in various ways. There are risks of going on roads and sleeping in possibly not entirely hospitable environments.
Moving by affordance – by whet allows to move – offers another kind of risk taking since we can also get stuck a bit, as well as having to forego a bit of foresight as to Where we move.
Experimentation, as different from Experimentalism that celebrates forms of known experimental gestures, requires some kind of risks. Doing stuff that we are clueless as how come they are done. Doing stuff since there’s a restless desire, an itch, rather than a history of reliability.

This kind of turn towards itching cluelessness is also part of the language used on this website..

Therefore it may come across awkward, weird and less than familiar at times. However, hopefully when weird grammar is used, when less than familiar kind of phraseology and terms appear, and some awkwardness may seem palpable –
they come since they are called for. They come since they – like the rest of this line – Escape into life via other options that fail.
(rather than a language forced by some kind of an ideology. for example,
how would one talk in english of evolving life, rather than a defined identified existence? How can we do that empahsis on life’s hard-to-define qualities, when the grammar emphasises Being, as a kind of captive via the verb “to be”? This is a genuine question since I am clueless, hence offer a few possibilities through the text – each with it’s own kind of a risk.)

In case you read this, you are Invited to knock this ViromeCaravan down via the wonders of your intelligence.
Indeed, I think that only a few elements in this ViromeCaravan may have lives of some sublimity –
lives that may evolve rather than come into a coiled collection of past possibilities to offer memories.

Language
Phrases and grammar usage, at times, may seem like english – however not exactly as (most humans) use.
This comes as part of a wider move to place a question-mark along standardised languages – spoken and otherwise. and
(For example, the last line might read smoother in form of: “This IS a part of..” – however, the IS both imagines a present and that it, the verb to Be, as some kind of a steady object. However, a difference is imagined via pointing towards evolutionary dynamics – stuff may come, as that may go, pause, have a swim, disappear, and so on? Imagination rather than existence oriented english?)

While yours truly could speak more daily kind of english –
it seems in-appropriate to attempt at anything other than genuinely authenticity.
Meaning there’s not much entertainment – attempting to please, to stroke places that already feel nice, safe, good and cosey.

Language usage, like the viromeCaravan themselves – is taking some kind of a risk. Risking rejection, miscommunication, and mostly – coming out all Wrong in terms of practice and its connectivities.

These risks are taken since they go along with focusing on evolutionary dynamics (ie, anything may indeed happen), imaginal sensations aesthetics (i.e. sharing sensations as imaginations that have dynamics – hence aesthetics), and since all are a making if not creating kind of a process –
cutting corners is not an option.

It is understood that such a process may not feel easy, or may feel uneasy in a not very necessary way.
Therefore, Please – with lots of sweets on top – Ask, Say, Note, Critique, Give us A shout – we can talk.

Fonts
The headings are in a font developed specifically with dyslexia in mind. OpenDyslexic.

The narratives behind fonts for Dyslexia are curious since there isn’t an actually conclusive evidence Dyslexic benefit from that font.
It seemed apt to use here since, there’s something virus-like in the question of Dyslexia oriented fonts effectivity.
Perhaps, like a cell, the dyslectic reading brain requires particular shapes to make life easier.
Perhaps like a virus, dyslexic oriented fonts, present themselves as possible friends?
As possibly friendly shapes, dyslexia oriented fonts may multiply – however, are they really friendly for dyslexic humans? Could some humans feel in-adequet dyslexic in case the very font ForThem – reads awkwardly? In such a case, could they, like a cell rejecting a virus – take action confidently?
More over, since we are talking here Viromes – regardless of the eventual friendlyness – or otherwise – of the font, the residue of such a font ever had a contact with humans, at least for a while – will linger after this particular jury come to a conclusion and verdict seems long forgotten.

Categories
about log news

plants and #viromecaravan?

For a fair few weeks, the idea of getting plants came knocking. Sometimes frequent knocks, mostly unfamiliar knocks at various frequencies. Mostly, I wasn’t tuned. Or It seemed I wasn’t tuned – perhaps the back of my mind was? Something must have kept some kind of a connection with the idea of plants.
It might not even be me who kept the connection – could be the condensation in the mornings. It could be that the knocks were banged by condensation in the mornings since the very idea of plants came through that dampness. The morning wetness inside the virome caravan.

Let’s try this differently?

The idea of plants has grown through the port of condensation.
I never had plants to care for. However, plants have always, unwittingly – cared for me. (think oxygen)

The data about condensation suggested that perhaps there could be less of, or even disappear – once certain plants were about.
Which plants?
Peace Lilly and Ferns..

Nice, I thought.
Could be useful to wake up in a drier place, no?
However, in case plants come in – will it not make their stay dependent and made for the sole benefit of a human?
Will the plants be ok moving to and fro with the caravan and me? (a human who never cared for a plant before..)

Could I take care of them? Their needs? What are plants’ needs, desires and imaginations? (A silly questions since it’s unclear whether, when we talk plants in general, these particular ones, these kind of plants, plants that live in some intimate proximity with humans, and so on – that they may have an imagination independent of humans. These lives have been domesticated for many generations, and if other lives domesication can come as an indication – eg, birds, dogs, cats etc. – human breading ways, alter the domesticated from the wild. eg, birds that may be bread for how they sing rather than looks, and so on. Such interventions place human desires into the organisms evolution.)

Also:
I noticed a recent study that suggests plants converse with one another through roots. This study made me think: No way do I get a plant!!
How could these plants converse with others while in pots??!!

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/land-plants-arose-earlier-thought-and-may-have-had-bigger-impact-evolution-animals

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/66302/5-ways-plants-communicate

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/10/24/beans-crucial-evolution-mammals-led-man-study-shows/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120701191636.htm

https://www.canna-uk.com/how_plants_communicate

http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet

https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%3A_Introductory_Biology_(CK-12)/12%3A_Vertebrates/12.04%3A_Evolution_of_Modern_Mammals

Plants Can ‘Talk’ To Each Other by Clicking Their Roots

https://academic.oup.com/aobpla/article/doi/10.1093/aobpla/plv050/201398

https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/04/30/the-rise-of-mammals/

https://phys.org/news/2012-10-co-evolution-mammals.html

At the end I did get plants.
How come?
Well.. A friend promised that they could take care of them in case the plants are unhappy with me one way or another.

Any other thoughts??

Categories
about

What’s in a name?

Virome
A term to describe viral genetic material sourced directly from the environment.
Virome refers to the assemblage of viruses. Each such assemblage is often investigated and described by meta-genomic sequencing of viral nucleic acids that are found associated with a particular ecosystem, organism or holobiont.

Caravan
A company of travelers, pilgrims, merchants, etc., going together for security.
A word that was picked up during the Crusades, via Arabic qairawan, from Persian karwan “group of desert travelers” (which may be related to Sanskrit karabhah “camel”).

Categories
about thoughts wonderings

How to move with a ViromeCaravan?

How do viruses move?
(for example, all the way from Wuhan – to the Amazonian jungles.)

While each virus may have their own particular ways to enter cells and reproduce, viruses share a manner that allows them into cells.
That is by way of aesthetics of space, shape and elasticity. To put it shortly –
viruses enter cells by looking like something the cells consider rather friendly.
(Indeed, perhaps, since animals are so full of viruses – it may be the case that viruses don’t Want to kill cells, but learn how to live in them?)
Once inhabiting a cell, the virus multiply and attempts to get into neighbouring cells for repeating the operation.
From a virus perspective, each body – an ape, a bird, a cow or a human – are like cell farms that they fancy inhabiting. Therefore we get movement from one animal to another which is similar to that of between cells – the target animal’s body needs to allow the viruses in. That might be via sex, air, touch or whatever –
point is that once an appropriate connection is made for the virus – they enter cells, and from one body to another, may move from the Amzonian Jungles, all the way to the frozen plains of Siberia.

While the multiplication, mutation, development and other evolutionary processes may require force and definitely power and energy from the virus to inflict on their surroundings –
The movement from one cell to another, be it in a different body or just next to an already inhabited one –
that movement
is done by affordance.

The virus is allowed, the virus is afforded a way in.

In somehow a similar manner, the ViromeCaravan will move.

Affordance? Yes, going with terrain geography and architecture, with the wind – in direction the least amount of force is required.
There are also other more human elements involved – like where safety may be afforded, perhaps some humans will want to meet, suggest or restrict directions in various manners.

Multiplication and evolution? There’s nothing to stop anyone infected by a friction with the ViromeCaravan to make one themselves. This caravan will be interested to assist.
While evolutionary manners are there as an option – they are in some ways slightly different from other virus movements, as of now.

Thrival? The thriving of a virus via movements between inhabiting within cells. That element comes as part of how the caravan moves. For example, in case of a strong wind, we might require a shelter. In case of getting hungry, we might need to directly moving for a place with food.
In case of requiring electricity – we might need to intentionally find a place to re-charge devices.

I think, since these self-need based moves – allow movements that are allowed, that are afforded by environments and contextual elements –
these do come as part of the affordance dynamics notion of movement.

Any other suggestions?

Categories
about thoughts

..and PersonalBows?

PersonalBows are a beginning.
A step.
a. move. that. lives as. part of ViromeCaravan.

How to make a personalbow?

Let’s consider other bows: like sunbows, rainbows, fogbows, and moonbows*

In spontaneous (aka natural), material-only oriented bows, there are certain dynamics we may notice relatively easy:
Reflections – eg light reflected in water.
Refractions – eg a reflected light alters direction. In rainbows, refraction & reflections make the Bow. or like:
When a spoon is placed in a glass full of water, the bit in the water seems to have a different angle.
Dispersion – eg, the various colours and shades seen in light oriented bows. The light is divided into a spectrum of colours and shades.

These are dynamics in the makeup of various bows since via reflective, refractive and dispersive moves coming in certain frictions with one another – we get fogbows, moonbows and so on.

..and PersonalBows?
Here we are about to get into a few translations, analogies and approximations between human sentient operations and materials’ seeming less elastic ways of doing stuff.

Hopefully there’s at least an initial spark of affording such a connecting imagination.
Sure, this may not hold long, since the translation, approximation and possibly analogies could be mistaken. However, even if mistaken – as in somehow the connections and links fall and fail – the wonderings here seem curious and possible to take into other directions yet imagined.  Imagining connections that are themselves to do with dynamics between – like reflections, from the perspectives of reflections rather than human. By the very analogy  of, for example, human meaning creation as a material operation like refraction – rather than the other way around – I think we get an imagination from material operations through which the human wondering may live as an escapee. The motion in the notion comes from general spontaneous dynamics – through which other more specific frictions may connect. These specificities may be Mammalian, Plant, and directed technological ones – as well as more sophisticated such as apes, humans, whales, ai and others.   
(Possibly, the mistaken interest has to do a bit with what Haraway calles “fabulations”)

Here’s a fairly commonly occurring dynamic that we will call here, to begin with, a **PersonalBow**:

    • Say a person may

reflect

    • on something, for example, the kind of clothes they wear.

In terms of PersonalBows, we can say that there’s a certain element connect-able with the other kinds of Bows mentioned – a reflection.

Therefore, to continue with the dynamics of Bows like moonbows, we can find out whether the reflection has a connected refraction.
What may be a Human oriented refraction, an operation that may take one thing to seem something slightly different?
It seems that, one such operation may be Meaning giving. For example, a reflective wonder about the kind of clothing one wears, might mean – for them – that they want to consider environmental aspects of fashion, or move away from a set of friends, and such like. the point is, that we get a dynamic of altered direction from that of the reflections’.

That alteration in direction, seems connect-able with refractive operations.

Another element of bows like sunbows, is the dispersion. When we talk lights, there are various shades and colours to be noticed. However, in terms of a *PersonalBow*?
Perhaps we can say that how a reflection and refraction may imprint, express and affect themselves in one’s life – has dispersive qualities?
eg
Reflecting the question of what one wears, doesn’t involve meanings only, there are bits of these reflective-meaning dynamics that vibrate through one’s life.
For example, a person might decide getting clothes only from charity shops, and so on.
Like light is being dispersed into constitutive parts, the personal clothing reflection has it’s own parts that make it.

Placed together in ways that maintain the connection between reflective, refractive and dispersive dynamics – we will get PersonalBows on the caravan.

For example:

MyFashion <—>
Focus on Environmenal Questions <—>
(HandMade,Local,Vegan,OnlyTerracottaRed,NoMakeUp,ShavedHeadOnly) <—>
(
<—> denoted that connections are between all 3 parts equally
)

Click here to send, anonymously, a personalbow.

*
Hats off to Julian Weaver for pointing these bows.

Categories
about miscellaneous thoughts

HTF??

How is this evolving?

We begin with moving like a virus to create personalBows-as-a-virome.
PersonalBows as a horizontally gathered residue of various viruses. Perhaps in this case, we are connecting
Reflections
Refractions and
Diffusions dynamics as
PersonalBows – with such wondering that may, in itself be considered
“Mind Plaguing”.

All these are initial, perhaps somehow arbitrary, movements that may alter, mutate and most certainly evolve. (even if that evolution is a developmental kind)

Note:
PersonalBows as connected to a making of a virome are collected from various environmental elements.
That may Include humans – however, will not preclude others.

For example, environmental elements such as wind and rain will be included in the way that they may live as part of the dynamics that shape what remains with physical residues on the caravan itself.

That’s how we came to use Chalk – a material that may leave marks on the caravan’s plastic. Marks are left as scratches as well as coloured lines.
The caravan has a few materials that may be used to leave marks. Each material with their own characteristics as to how the marks left, look like and may remain – or otherwise.