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Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone — Readmill

Impro: Impro­vi­sa­tion and the The­atre by Kei­th John­stone — Readmill

So I fin­ished read­ing Impro this week­end. In addi­tion to the things I men­tioned in my tiny review two things are worth mentioning:

  1. Sta­tus play. This was an eye-open­er to me, that in all human inter­ac­tions one can observe sta­tus sig­nals. John­stone goes on to sug­gest you can play with sta­tus sig­nals in all man­ner of sit­u­a­tions. I’ve start­ed doing just that and it can be quite liberating.

  2. Mask work. Read­ing this sec­tion I was most­ly just super eager to try mask work myself. John­stone talks about masks hav­ing an inher­ent per­son­al­i­ty that is chan­neled through the actor, sim­i­lar to being pos­sessed by a spir­it… I’m won­der­ing if a larp based on the ideas about masks pre­sent­ed here would work. It’d be inter­est­ing to try out.

An Occult History of the Television Set

An Occult His­to­ry of the Tele­vi­sion Set

This arti­cle on the weird ori­gins of the tele­vi­sion set remind­ed me of the very enjoy­able nov­el Carter Beats the Dev­il. In which the the tv and its inven­tor Phi­lo Farnsworth are a sig­nif­i­cant plot point and major character.

It’s a good reminder of how ratio­nal­i­ty will only get you so far when invent­ing new things.

A critical reflection on Big Data: Considering APIs, researchers and tools as data makers | Vis | First Monday

A crit­i­cal reflec­tion on Big Data: Con­sid­er­ing APIs, researchers and tools as data mak­ers | Vis | First Monday

This is a great read on big data, argu­ing any data is not just found “out there”, but made, not just by peo­ple but also by tools and researchers. It’s kind of a Latouri­an take on big data. Also goes into James C Scott ter­ri­to­ry. Worth your time.

New Fashion Aesthetic

New Fash­ion Aesthetic

I’m read­ing De Botton’s The Archi­tec­ture of Hap­pi­ness at the moment. Its dis­cus­sion of the things that deter­mine taste has lead me to won­der what it is peo­ple find appeal­ing about the New Aes­thet­ic. A lot of the dis­cus­sion about it is very cere­bral. “What is it?” etc. What I’m inter­est­ed in is: why do we find it inter­est­ing / beau­ti­ful / etc. Because after all, “There are as many styles of beau­ty as there are visions of happiness.”