Category Archives: field study

“During winter quarter we’ll experience and articulate specific forms of consciousness and language in relation to a particular passion. One of us might want to explore Gerard Manley Hopkins’ love of bluebells and windhovers in relationship to his poetry, or create a poetic world around a passion for sport or to experience how fantasy sports are a poetic world. One of us might immerse herself in the biodynamic rhythms of chocolate sustainably farmed, or listen for the resonance between silence and sound in YoYo Ma’s performance of Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G. The methodology of our field study will aspire to that of 18 th C poet and civil engineer, Novalis for whom “knowledge and creation were united in a wondrous mutual tie.” Writing in response to our field studies will take the form of reciprocal creations such as in Melissa Kwasny’s Reading Novalis in Montana” and the poems of Wallace Stevens and Pattiann Rogers discussed in class.

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Ms is for Memory through Smell

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Field Study proposal excerpt

The student will read and assess poetry pertaining to scent in regards to memory. She will engage fellow classmates in poetry writing in an atmosphere of scent throughout the quarter and create Cento (or “Scento”) poems with those works; as well as creating “Scento” poems from perfume/fragrance jingles. The student will participate in weekly seminars and create short works of poetry and/or prose in response to weekly readings. She will develop a greater sense of how smell and memory are connected in our neural networks. At the end of the quarter the student will present her work to her class in the form of two written chapters and a final presentation.

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ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • Ms – Week 9 Log June 10, 2013 May 27th 2 hours Reading Neuro (Ch. 8) 2 hours Reading Perloff 2.5 hour writing term papers May 28th 2 hours writing term papers 1 hour gathering/editing poetry for term papers 2.5 hours Writing, editing term papers/poetry May ...
  • Ms – Week 8 Log May 27, 2013 May 20th 2 hours Reading Neuro (Ch. 7) 1.5 hours Reading Perloff (Ch. 7) 3 hour Writing poems, posting on eAlphabet May 21st 2.5 hours Morning class discussion of readings, thoughts on readings 2,5 hours Writing, ...
  • Ms – Week 7 Log May 20, 2013 May 13th 1 hour Reading Poetry and the Fate of the Senses (Stewart) 1.5 hours writing poems 1 hour researching/looking for Proustian writers in library (with much success) May 14th 30 minutes In-class smell experiment with ...
  • Ms – Week 6 Log May 13, 2013 May 6th 4 hours Reading Poetry and the of the Senses (Susan Stewart) and A Dirty Smell of Mangoes (Ernesto de Souza Pochito 2 hour Writing and Editing olfactory poems May 7th 4.5 hours Creating poems 2 hours ...

Bachelardian Reverie

  • Ms – Week 9 Bachelardian Reverie May 28, 2013 “For, as so many ethnographic studies of laboratory life have shown, the laboratory is not a ‘non-space': it is itself a real configuration of persons, devices, and techniques, which imposes ...
  • Ms – Week 8 Bachelardian Reverie May 22, 2013 “This individualized inwardness, with its interiority and its continuity, is both unique to each and common to all (it was not always so, consider slaves, women, ‘primatives’, children, idiots, the ...
  • Ms – Week 7 Bachelardian Reverie May 22, 2013 “Anglo-American legal systems conceptualize their subjects – with specific exceptions – as individuals with minds, or mental states, who intend to commit, and who foresee their outcome to the extent ...
  • Ms – Week 6 Bachelardian Reverie May 22, 2013 “Where human life is concerned, scientific tools are not neutral: ‘the mind has been recreated in their image'” (Rose & Abi-Rached 159). To be more specific… the collective ‘we’ defines the ...

Poetry

  • Ms – Poetry of Smell – Of Coffee and Candles No cheaper way to start the day but powerful and wakes you. u Smokey rooms, bars, and dark hallways, vapors sliding past each other. © Alone, with loved ones, bitter lingering. ¤ Memories of wax ...
  • Ms – Poetry of Smell – (s)Cento of the Flower April 30. 2013 Drapes’ weight dusk subtle morning irrigation spring spicy elation vibrant joy childhood my best friend, Carolina womb.   ** This lovely piece was constructed of words that first came to mind for students when smelling a flower that ...
  • Ms – Poetry of Smell – Haughtiness Disco Lemonade, Saliva, Body Heat It’s amazing how the rush of domamine dopemine, I’m dopey from the dopa- whatever the hell. of heroin(e) of substances of your breath first kisses -the real one -the one after weeks Subtle brushing of ...
  • Ms – Poetry of Smell – Happiness Cashmere Perfume Undertones of cigarette smoke delicate butts rimmed with pink lipstick Diet Pepsi … the gold can with a straw – The consistent smell of Christmas. I could so easily be a chain smoker too … her constant ...
  • Ms – Poetry of Smell – Nervousness Tide Detergent + Compost Tipsy knocking on your door (Dreadful) dread inoculates my veins I whine drunkenly for you to help me I want to vomit not from the alcohol but because you’re not alone. My face flushes in ...
  • Ms – Poetry of Smell – A Darkness Artificial Cherry Hand Lotion The house, the key my body, broken, Heart a nervous beating. I am a child so scared her nails dig into my arm Why can’t you be pretty? like your sister You look like a boy. But ...

Poetry Observed

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Term Paper Abstract

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UGHH01SM-2-2

Hh is for Hip-Hop Music

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Field Study proposal excerpt

Throughout the time with this contract Andre will be studying self expression and creativity through Hip-hop, an oral art form with roots in music and poetry. He will be studying the techniques of Hip-hop artists and implementing them into his own music and poetry, and will be creating a “My Poets” chapter based on Maureen McClane’s “My Poets: My Emily Dickinson” for both Hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur’s lyrics and poetry as well as his own. To produce this music Andre will be using self supplied recording equipment to create a collection of voice recordings and will be using Evergreen’s mixing bench to edit the sound of each recording. From this the student will learn about creativity and poetry through a series of rules and disciplines including rhythmic and tonal disciplines involving his own voice. While working on this project, Andre will continue to participate in core program activites as described by the program syllabus.

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • Hh – Week 9 Log June 6, 2013 May 27th 2 hours – Writing Poetry 3 hours – Reading: How To Rap: The Art and Science of The Hip Hop MC 2 hours – Recording May 28th 2.5 hours – Attending Seminar on ...
  • Hh – Week 8 Log June 4, 2013 May 20th 4 hours – Studying Tupac: Strictly for My N.*.G.G.A.Z. 2 hours – Writing Poetry 2 hours – Comparing Tupac: 2Pacalypse to All Eyez On Me May 21st 2.5 hours – Attending Seminar on ...
  • Hh – Week 7 Log June 4, 2013 May 13th 2.5 hours – Reading: How To Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip Hop MC 4 hours – Writing lyrics 2.5 hours – Studying Tupac: 2Pacalypse Now May 14th 2.5 hours – ...
  • Hh – Week 6 Log May 12, 2013 May 6th 3.5 hours – Reading: How To Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip Hop MC 3 hours – Writing lyrics 1.5 hours – Studying Tupac: The Rose That Grew From ...

Bachelardian Reverie

  • Hh – Week 9 Reverie May 28, 2013 “We have already contrasted two ways of thinking about sociality in social neuroscience: On the one hand, we find the impoverished conception of sociality that can be found in most ...
  • Hh – Week 8 Reverie May 21, 2013 “Many from the social and human sciences regard this neurobiologization of the self as the most challenging feature of contemporary neuroscience. It seems to threaten the very conception of the ...
  • Hh – Week 7 Reverie May 14, 2013 “Antisocial and violent conduct is a major social problem, which also generates significant economic costs, and is hence an important target for government intervention. Such conduct runs in families, and ...
  • Hh – Week 6 Reverie May 7, 2013 “We live in groups, families, communities, societies. We work collaboratively in organizations, fight in bands and armies, take pleasure in events where we gather together to dance, party, watch or ...

Poetry

  • Hh – Week 9 Poetry This is a poem I haven’t finished yet, but I love it and will give an update when I finish it! I Heard Sirens I heard sirens They wailed a song which could ...
  • Hh – Week 8 Poetry This is a poem I wrote based on Tupac’s “In The Depths of Solitude”, it’s in the front of my poetry book and I dedicated it to myself. The Valley I live ...
  • Hh – Week 7 Poetry This is a poem I wrote about monsters, which led to me writing a song about embodying the spirit of being a “monster”. I feel as though in society, we ...
  • Hh – Week 6 Poetry This is a poem I wrote based on Tupac’s “If There Be Pain” and a line that really resonated with me which is “My life was lived through falling rain”, ...

Poetry Observed

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Term Paper Abstract

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Image borrowed from http://flowingdata.com/2007/07/04/social-data-analysis-by-the-swarm/

S is for Swarm

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Field Study proposal excerpt

“S is for Swarm” is an independent project dealing with themes of swarm intelligence and computational creativity. In addition to researching the emergence of these fields, the student will begin building a series of computerized poetry machines that use altered genetic algorithms as word selection parameters. An example of this is Artificial Bee Colony algorithm.

Drawing on As Poetry Recycles Neurons’ larger themes of recycling, this project aims to repurpose the repurposed: the biological that has been recycled for the technological will once again be recycled for the poetic. What garbled message will emerge from this trail of antecedents? When the beehive’s search for honey is translated first into code and then into English, what digitalized honeycombs will be built? What residue of consciousness will the hive mind whisper?

This project seeks to complicate commonly accepted dichotomies, blurring the borders between the biological and computational, the poetic and mathematic, and considering the decentralized nature of swarm intelligence, the individual and mob. The interstices between these will serve as fertile soil, where nutrients will be recycled and poetry will grow.

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • S – Week 9 Log June 3, 2013 5/26: 5 hours of working on final paper, 1 hours of NetLogo, 2 hours on Excel 5/27: 2.25 hrs of class, 4 hours of working on final paper, 3 hours on Calculated ...
  • S – Week 8 Log May 27, 2013 5/19: 4 hours of writing final project, 2 hours of library research 5/20: 2.25 hrs of class, 2 hours of reading Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America and the ...
  • S – Week 7 Log May 19, 2013 5/12: 3 hours NetLogo, 1 hour reading Caroline Bergvall’s poetry, 2 hours with Unoriginal Genius 5/13: 1 hour of class time, 2 hours reading Calculated Poetry, 1 hour w/ N. Rose’s website/lectures, ...
  • S – Week 6 Log May 13, 2013 5/5: 3 hours of reading Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetics, 1 writing Bachelardian Reverie, 1 hr of Calculated Poetics reading and writing, 3 hrs with Unoriginal Genius 5/6: 2.25 hrs of class, ...

Bachelardian Reverie

  • S – Week 8 Bachelardian Reverie May 21, 2013 “…Individuals observing a rubber hand will sometimes attribute sensation to that hand rather than to their own. For example, experimental subjects will make this false attribution if they see the ...
  • S – Week 7 Bachelardian Reverie May 14, 2013 “In each generation, unsurprisingly, these arguments are made on the basis of whatever happens to be the current mode of objectivity about the development of children—habits, the will, instinct theory, ...
  • S – Week 6: Bachelardian Reverie April 23, 2013 Neuro, Chapter 5  “Perhaps arguments from neuroscience are merely being invoked to give such proposals a sheen of objectivity—for they are often criticized as arising from hopes rather than facts.” (Rose ...

Poetry

  • S – Week 8: S/T S/T “Depending on what I meant by here and me, and being, and there I never went looking for extravagant meanings, there I never much varied, only the here would sometimes ...
  • S – Week 7: Fabling the Quanta Fabling the Quanta “They talk of attraction and magnetism; these notions suggest a force acting between two given bodies; what is left out of account is how utterly the bodies appear ...
  • S – Week 6: Notes from a Surgeon Dedicated to anyone whose feminism gets in the way of their ability to leave the house. Notes from a Surgeon  1. My education has trained me to be if not distrustful, then at ...

Term Paper Abstract

While echoing the structure of Susan Howe’s The Midnight, this paper contains two sections of lyric essays, two sections of/on poetics, and one of linguistic ellipses. In these, the author interrogates themes of generative poetry, swarm intelligence, and sense-making. Two possible frameworks for assigning meaning to objects—material and theoretical—are supplied: Philip K. Dick’s classification of “kipple” and Ian Bogost’s Latour Litanies. Within each paradigm, parts are combined to produce two vastly different wholes. Applying each framework to the craft of generative poetry, the author explores what happens poetically when these parts are entrusted with agency. This is done so through genetic algorithms and NetLogo, an agent-based modeling environment.

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A is for Alchemy

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Alchemy, or the “Art of Black Soil”, is a vast field that has spanned several millenia and influenced some of the greatest scientists and thinkers from antiquity to modern times. The student will be undertaking a field study that seeks to understand the Alchemist’s worldview by researching its history and psychology and observing the process of solve et coagula (dissolution and re-synthesis) in his own art, music, and poetry. The alchemical process of transmuting matter from one form to another is a metaphor for the constant recycling of elements found in nature, the psyche and the neuronal recycling of the human brain. The student seeks to show that perhaps more fundamental than the exoteric concerns of alchemy are its esoteric ones, for in order to shape the world around us, we must first distill the elements of our own psyche in a metaphorical suffering, death, and rebirth. Jung saw that the Alchemists where in essence projecting their psychic or inner worlds onto the alembics of their laboratories. For the Alchemists, their work was the work of the divine. They were immersed in the sacred by their work as homo faber and as creator and manipulator of tools. They took their inspiration from the natural world around them and saw the universe as an animated sentient life-form, as evident in their belief that the ores they worked with were embryos that took gestation in the matrix of the Earth or Petra Genetrix. The student hopes to show that matter and psyche are inseparable and that just as the Earth is a womb, so is the mind a matrix for the birth of all things. From Aether, to Mind, to Muscle to Machine humans have become a conduit for the creative force that animates the universe, and by working with this principle, will align themselves with the work of the Divine. The Alchemists realized long ago, as the texts attributed to the mythic Hermes Trismegestus tell us, that the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm, or, “that which is above is like that which is below”. The student will be using his skills in digital music and media as well as his knowledge of poetry to create an anthology of works that illustrates the composting processes that are ubiquitous in the natural world. He will be combining his knowledge and use of organic as well as synthetic mediums to show how the composting of sounds, images and language recycles the neurons of the Alchemist. Jed Rasula addresses the composting of language when he writes “poetry is language disclosed as paradox, where naming does not re-present but dissolves and then reforms creation, where the speaker too is dissolved into the act of speech and reemerges…”

 

 

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • A – Log Week 9 June 4, 2013 16 hours – reading (This Compost, Neuro, The Midnight, various poetry, The Forge and the Crucible, Creative Mythology, Transcendental Magic, etc). 8 hours – sound design and digital art utilizing granular ...
  • A – Log Week 8 June 4, 2013 16 hours – reading (This Compost, The Forge and the Crucible, The Alchemy Reader, Creative Mythology, Neuro, various poetry, etc). 5 hours – sound design with granular processing in Ableton Live, ...
  • A – Log Week 7 June 4, 2013 16 hours – reading (The Alchemy Reader, Jung’s Psychology of Alchemy, Creative Mythology, Neuro, This Compost, various poetry, The Forge and the Crucible, The Red Lion, Timeaus). 8 hours – software ...
  • A – Log Week 6 June 4, 2013 16 hours – reading (The Alchemy Reader, The Forge and the Crucible, Creative Mythology, This Compost, Transcendental Magic, The Red Lion). 10 hours – software design (granular scrubber design in Reaktor ...

Neuro Reveries

  • A – Neuro Reverie Week 9 June 4, 2013 “Despite their many differences, it is possible to identify a general picture of “the self” and “the person” emerging from contemporary developments in the brain sciences. In this picture, consciousness, ...
  • A – Neuro Reverie Week 8 June 4, 2013 “The contemporary Western conception of the Self – individualized, bounded, with interior depth and temporal continuity, self-possessed, autonomous, free to choose – was not natural, given, or universal, it was ...
  • A – Neuro Reverie Week 7 May 14, 2013 “Further, as we have seen in chapter 2, evidence from brain scans or other neurobiological tests does not ‘speak for itself’ – it must be spoken for. Images do not ...
  • A – Neuro Reverie Week 6 May 8, 2013 “Becoming aware of the social and biological conditions that underpin our actions can, it seems, help each of us develop our competencies and understand and manage our cognitive facilities.” (pp.160) Developing ...

Poetry

  • Music of the Spheres   Word comes through the mist / of music Sacred secrets spiral / vibrating voices Ascending / harmony is drawn from / dissimilar proportions Pluck the / stars and watch them ...
  • Satrotrope    
  • Word Yolk Seed of word-body decomposing / nutrient rich packet of information / Embryo /Yolk / new bodies for new soil / / new growth shoots green / stems flowering buds and ...
  • Recycled Waste (Land)    Ruin    inevitable,                                          yet                                                 bloom the land fallen dead. Memories  of the  lustful germ and rain.
  • Armillary Sphere

Multimedia

 

A is for Alchemy: Granular Processing

Spring Term Papers

Nigredo

As readers we are not passive consumers of finished products. Each time we read we consummate with words in a ritual act of hieros gamos. The reader is motivated to reassemble texts into new and different word-worlds. The writer is responsible for the inception of a world that has more connections and meaning seeded within it than they can be possibly aware of. Poetry is especially rich with latent meaning and infinite possibility. Upon reading, poetry breaks down into nutrient rich soil, in turn fusing both the poem and the reader. This Compost: Ecological Imperatives in American Poetry explores this process by drawing on the works of a diverse array of American poets. In the book, quotation and tropic language are the composting mediums that turn the soil. The author, Jed Rasula, posits that language is biodegradable; it decomposes just like organic matter. Over time the poem starts to disintegrate and composite identities emerge from the ashes of the old. Word and language are animate; they live and die by the same rules that all life forms do. Populations of word organisms form semiotic biospheres; their overlapping meanings are sympatric cohabitations of ecological niches; their deaths alchemical transmutations. Like This Compost, this paper is both philosophical discourse and anthology of mutilation. Its focus is on the Nigredo stage of alchemy, or putrefaction, that occurs in the first stages of decomposition. It is in this stage that soma becomes fertile black earth, the word-matrix that births new life condensed into meaning.

Solve Et Coagula

Solve Et Coagula is a stitch work composition of word and image modeled after Susan Howe’s The Midnight. Here, the process of solve et coagula or dissolution and synthesis, is both method and subject. This paper is inspired by my work with digital sound design and the graphic arts as well as the mythos and history of magic. This work is intended to be a granulation and condensation of the language and symbols of alchemy as well an illustration of my creative process. I use the repetition of words and sounds (parachesis and alliteration) to induce a dissociated state within the mind of the reader. Out of this dissociation, composite identities emerge. The composting of image, word and sound is simultaneously a genesis of new life. Latent meaning is interlaced with the sounds of words and the images they evoke. The Midnight explores the thin veil between text and image, object and subject. Solve Et Coagula is a similar reflection on the space between music and noise and the matrix or margin between order and chaos. It is out of this place that new word-worlds are born. In alchemical terms, the adept fuses with their sacred texts, sewing pieces of their soul into the fabric of a universe perfuse with signs. This paper is intended to be coded and cryptic, mirroring ancient texts attributed to the likes of Hermes Trismagestus or Zozimos of Panopolis. By trying to decipher its coded language, the reader turns words like soil, populating its symbols with the germ of meaning. In The Midnight, Howe weaves her personal and familial history into a poetic memoir. Here, these characters are replaced by the mythic and archetypal figures of alchemy and magic.

 

 

LP is for Sublime: bridging the gap between lyrics and poetry

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Field Study Proposal

The student will explore what happens to the sense of self, body and mind when  experiencing the music of Sublime. She will pose the questions,  Who am I in relation to their lyrics, their style, their clothes, their sound, their overall identity, how do they personally affect me and/ or the culture around me?  How can I know?  This last question, How Can I Know?, Meditation can be described as a process of “cleaning the lens” of one’s own self perception, therefore,  the student will plan to use and study different meditation methods to try and answer these questions. The student will also be creating poetry and lyrics based off of the influence of the band Sublime, followed with a term paper modeled after Susan Howe’s The Midnight execpt the students’ will be in relation with Sublime. the student will also be producing a Craig Holdrege skunk cabbage style paper based strictly around The album by Sublime, 40oz to Freedom.

 

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • lp- week 9 log June 2, 2013 May 26th 3 hours reading Cuda 3 hours reading Damasio 30 minutes chan meditation session daily total: 6 and 1/2 hours May 27th 1 hour meditataion session 4 hours editing Holdrege and Howe style paper 30 minutes reading ...
  • lp- week 8 log June 1, 2013 May 19th 3 hours re-reading Susan Howe’s The Midnight 4 hours writing poetry for Susan Howe style paper 30 minutes chan meditation session daily total: 7 and 1/2 hours May 20th 4 hours working on Susan ...
  • lp- week 7 log May 22, 2013 May 12th 3 1/2 hours reading Damasio favorite quote —>  “We all have free access to consciousness, bubbling so easily and abundantly in our minds that without hesitation or apprehension we let ...
  • lp-week 6 log May 14, 2013 May 5th 1 hour: researching different methods of meditation              during this hour i have begun research on finding the best form of meditation for me. i ...

Bachelardian Reverie

  • lp- Bachelard Reverie .4 May 28, 2013 “For, as so many ethnographic studies of laboratory life have shown, the laboratory is not a “non-space”: it is itself a real configuration of persons, devices, and techniques, which imposes ...
  • lp-Bachelard Reverie .3 May 21, 2013 “In the course of centuries the naive self-love of men had had to submit to two major blows at the hands of science, the first was when they the earth ...
  • lp- Bachelard Reverie: Neuro .2 May 14, 2013 “Whatever the virtue of arguments for preventative intervention in relation to health, in the case of neurobiologically based strategies for preventative crime control, we argue that policies of screen and ...
  • lp – Bachelard Reverie: Neuro .1 May 6, 2013 “We have a social brain in that the brain has evolved to favor a certain type of sociality manifested in all the interactions between persons and groups that come naturally ...

Poetry

  • lp- Ode to Sublime I feel the break, feel the break, feel the break and I’ve gotta live it up Because life is to short to let my worries guide me So yeah, I’ll take another ...
  • lp- Insignificant Information Flows.  A cascading fountain of thought. Sometimes, I don’t know how to say what I feel. Life isn’t fair. I want to go far away and never return. People say things they don’t mean. I ...
  • lp- Searching/Waking Up Vibrations echo in the halls of my mind Mind vibrations echo in the halls Failure to submit is truth that I find Finding failure to truth and submission The feelings of pleasure are like ...
  • lp- The Shepherd Sound takes flight like a flock of crows Roaming around until it finds purpose Like a hot knife it can pierce your heart Forcing your mind down paths as the heart has a ...
  • lp- Music Sometimes it makes you Feel like crying Sometimes it makes you Feel like dying Sometimes it makes you Feel like jumping for joy Sometimes it can make you Feel nothing at all   Or maybe it’s like a ...
  • lp-DON’T PUSH To the morning we must drop the bass Mad rhythm throbbing through your chest, You’d feel it through and through Beats soaring high in the sky And if I could I’d shoot heaven on ...
  • lp-RIGHT BACK/BALL AND CHAIN Sleeping by yourself at night can make you feel alone Your girlfriend said so but I don’t really know. I’ve heard you can get injured from to much love Not the love that ...
  • lp- Resonation within ourselves Music reminds me of a seduction that I was powerless to overcome.  Battles that were impossible to avoid. It changes my life, turning right instead of left, and has brought me to become ...
  • lp- Sublime Haiku’s SUBLIME of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty, as to inspire the great     REVERIE sound so beautiful my ears tickle with delight feeling so sublime     “LETS GO GET STONED” marijuana high feels like floating through the sky how slow time goes by     BRADLEY A ...

Poetry Observed

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Term Paper Abstract

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G is for Glassblowing

G is for Glassblowing

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Field Study Proposal

This student will be studying 3 different forms of meditation using the Goethean Scientific Field Study for 1 month beginning in May and reycling her expierence through poetry, art and prose. The first will be the meditation of labor through interning with a glassblower in Seattle and will be the main focus. She will be studying what meditation comes through laborious activities through glassblowing. The second will be attending the Seattle Meditation Center on Tuesdays and Thursdays for beginners in Dhammakaya meditation taught by Thai Monks. The third will be the study of Trancendental Meditation through Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal’s Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s The Science of Being and Art of Living and many other online resources. She will also be doing yoga Mondays, Wednesdays on her own through previous classes at Edmonds Community College. She will combine this work into a Term paper.

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • Week 8 Log May 25, 2013 May 18th 20 minutes: Morning Transcendental Meditation session 2 hours: Glassblowing Documentary 2 hours: Readings Rosenthal’s Transcendance 1 hours: Drafting poetry 1 1/2 hour: Drafting Holdrege: Abstract finished and more detailed outlined completed 1 hours: Reading Mahesh Yogi 1 ...
  • Week 7 Log May 18, 2013 May 11th 20 minutes: Morning Transcendental Meditation session 2 hours: Reading Neuro 1 hours: Drafting Neuro Reverie 2 hours: Readings Rosenthal’s Transcendance 20 minutes: Evening Meditation session 40 minutes: Researching Glassblowing techniques 2 hours: Reading Mahesh Yogi (8 ...
  • Week 6 Log May 10, 2013 May 6th 20 minutes: Morning Transcendental Meditation session, first session with chosen Mantra “IM” 1 1/2 hours: Reading Neuro 1 hours: Writing Neuro Reverie 3 hours: Readings Rosenthal’s Transcendance 30 minutes: Evening Meditation session (turned into 30, ...

Bachelardian Reverie

  • Week 8 Neuro Reverie May 20, 2013 Renee Ingersoll As Poetry Recycles Neurons 5/20/13 Neuro Reverie “…the twenty-first century brain is not an organ whose fate is fixed at the moment of conception and birth, but is a plastic and open ...
  • Week 7 Neuro Reverie May 14, 2013 Renée Ingersoll As Poetry Recycles Neurons 5/14/13 Neuro Reverie   Neuro Reverie “..The criminal as, anatomically and physiologically, an organic anomaly.” (Rose and Abi-Rached, Neuro; 169) “During the last fifteen years there is no specific work in criminal ...
  • Week 6 Psychoanalysis of Fire May 10, 2013 “Indeed, I do not think I lit a fire myself before I was eighteen years old. It was only when I lived alone that I became master of my own hearth. (Bachelard, The ...
  • Week 6 Neuro Reverie May 7, 2013 Renée Ingersoll As Poetry Recycles Neurons Tuesday Reverie 5/7/13 Word Count: 182   Neuro Reverie “It appeared that this challenged the conventional, rationalist accounts of ascription—that we understand the intentions of others by creating theories about what ...

Poetry

  • Week 9 Calculated poem The idea of primitive elements combining to create art, and of the importance of relationships between elements, also exists in visual art and dance.” (Levitin,This is your brain on music; ...
  • Week 8 Calculated Poem “Love acts beyond the phase wills it into – Hate is obscure, errs, is pain, furor, torn – a Lust to adorn aversion, hope, love eying its object joined to ...
  • Glassblowing Poetry Part 1 Like Hephaestus at his forge, I am molding molten lava To d e l i c a t e and beautiful form I dance atop my Volcano with trusty rod in hand From table ...
  • Week 7 Calculated Poem Renee Ingersoll as poetry recycles neurons week 7 calculated poem 5-17-13 “The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand. ...
  • Week 6 Calculated Poem “Imagine a series of Chinese boxes in which each box contains a series of chinese boxes.” (Fractal Geometry, 22) “You are everywhere partial and entire.” (Hymn, A.R. Ammons) I hold the universe in my curves A plethora of ...

Poetry Observed

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Term Paper Abstract

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Japanese_Hiragana_kyokashotai_ME

Me is for Music and The Midnight

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Field Study Proposal/Abstract

Through the immersion and exploration of my music and lyrics, as well as natural sounds, I will work to answer this question: What is sound, how does sound carry meaning, and what does my own sound (my music and lyrics) mean to me? The answer to this question will be accomplished through my immersion in the creation of my material followed by self-reflection upon the background of each song. Also to be included in this study is the reading and analysis of books on the subject sound that I have selected for individual research during Spring quarter.

The majority of students in our program this quarter will be basing their immersion, research, etc on the work of someone else. For what I am trying to accomplish, the idea of using outside methods seems counterintuitive. How can I base my methods of self-reflection around the work of others when I am my own scientist and only subject? My final term paper will be based on the organization and methodology of Susan Howe’s The Midnightin that the essay will be in the form of a journal. 

Howe’s Midnight: I can imagine it being written by her all at once, alone and lucid in the middle of the night. Surrounded by bed hangings, scraps of herself and her past and the past of the world, she stared with eyes wide open into total darkness. When the Midnight is pitch black, it is a mirror, a wreck to dive into that jostles the senses and the mind and the heart and makes us as desperate and as fiendish as dogs to grasp and clasp and smash together the fleeting fragments echoing ghosts within ourselves and to squish them into something concrete that in the end crumbles in our hands like dry bread no matter how fast we scramble or how hard we try and cry out, like dogs. Dogs in the night, how(e)ling at the darkness as if there were never a moon or stars in the sky.  In darkness, the light of the mind becomes clearer.

This paper is an exploration of sound science and current artwork that I have produced as well as a critical analysis of the artwork of my past. Where do my passion and history intersect with the music I make? How have the sounds of nature influenced my music as well as that of the culture I am a part of? I also delved into the idea of music as an evolutionary tool for self-expression and survival; a way for us to live with our Midnights without being blinded by the darkness.

To me, the Midnight that fuels Susan Howe’s work lies within us. It is an internal darkness from which light and music arise. It is the part of ourselves that we sense but cannot fully comprehend. It is fluctuating, untranslatable. The Midnight is the weight of self-awareness; the not knowing, the torment, the necessity of art, of music.

 

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • Spring Week 9 Log June 3, 2013 Spring Week 9 Log   Sunday 5/26:   -3 hours working on term paper -1 hour recording music -1.5 hours editing recordings -1/2 hour editing eAlphabet site   Day total: 6   Monday 5/27:   -4 hours working on term paper -1.5 hours recording -1.5 ...
  • Spring Week 8 Log May 27, 2013 Spring Week 8 Log   Sunday 5/19:   -1 hour writing Neuro reverie -1 hour editing and adding to the eAlphabet site -1 hour reading TGAO -1 hour editing recordings -1/2 hour recording music   Day total: 4.5 hours   Monday 5/20:   -2 ...
  • Spring Week 7 Log May 19, 2013 Spring Week 7 Log   Sunday 5/12:   -1/2 hour reading Neuro (ch.6) -1 hour writing Neuro reverie -1/2 hour editing eAlphabet site -1/2 hour working on term paper -2.5 hours recording music   Day total: 5 hours   Monday 5/13:   -2 ...
  • Spring Week 6 Log May 14, 2013 Sunday 5/5:   -1 hours reading TGAO (The Great Animal Orchestra) -1 hour reading Neuro (ch.5) -1/2 hour writing Neuro reverie -2.5 hours recording music -1 hour editing tracks -1/2 hour calculated poetics readings   Day total: 6.5 hours   Monday ...

Bachelardian Reverie

  • Week 9 Neuro Reverie May 29, 2013 Week 9 Neuro Reverie   “We will undoubtedly find support fir the core contention of the human sciences, that human societies are not formed by aggregations of such isolates, each bounded by ...
  • Week 8 Neuro Reverie May 22, 2013 Week 8 Neuro Reverie   “…your brain is amazing; it is flexible; it can be trained, developed, improved, optimized: learn to use it well for your own benefit and for that of ...
  • Week 7 Neuro Reverie May 19, 2013 Week 7 Neuro Reverie     “The headline on Sky News on April 26, 2010 read: ‘Murdered Gangster’s Brain Donated to Science: Scientists Have Been Given the Chance to Get Inside the ...
  • Week 6 Neuro Reverie May 6, 2013 “It appeared that this challenged the conventional, rationalist accounts of ascription—that we understand the intentions of others by creating theories about what lies behind their appearance or their acts, on ...

Poetry

https://soundcloud.com/nat-lefkoff/strange-bird-with-colton

 

https://soundcloud.com/nat-lefkoff/everything-passing-with-louise

 

https://soundcloud.com/nat-lefkoff/drumsticks-written-with-louise

 

https://soundcloud.com/nat-lefkoff/vampire

 

https://soundcloud.com/nat-lefkoff/centipede-with-louise-decramer

 

https://soundcloud.com/nat-lefkoff/great-white-plains-1

Poetry Observed

(embedded youtube or Vimeo video will go here)

Term Paper

Part 1

http://blogs.evergreen.edu/ealphabet/music-and-the-midnight-part-1

 

Part 2 

http://blogs.evergreen.edu/ealphabet/music-and-the-midnight-part-2 

 

Part 3

http://blogs.evergreen.edu/ealphabet/music-and-the-midnight-part-3

 

 

F is for The Female Body

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Over the next eight weeks this student plans to understand how the female body has physically changed over the last one hundred years compared to the fluxing views it holds in American society. She hopes to look at the views of women, men, literature, art, and how she herself sees the figure of the woman’s body. This student will be reading six books of anatomy, spirituality, the history of the woman’s body, views of the woman’s body through the lens of a zoologist, as well as a book of body poetry. Throughout this field study this student will keep a journal of her findings from the books and how she herself is forming views about herself and the women in her life. She will find and partake in any woman and body inspired workshops in Olympia or Seattle to immerse herself in different communities of women.

 

Field Study proposal excerpt

(an excerpt from your in-program ILC will go here )

See full proposal and weekly logs

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • F ~ Week 9 Log June 2, 2013 May 27th, Monday 1.5 hours connecting with our peer group, reaching out, hugs, tears, and words of wisdom. 3 hours reading The Female Pelvis Anatomy & Exercise by Blandine Calais-Germain, performing the exercises, breathing, moving slowly ...
  • F ~ Week 8 Log May 26, 2013 May 20th, Monday 2 hours reading Neuro by Nikolas Rose, conjuring a reverie. 4 hours reading Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf, reflecting upon my own body, note taking 1 hour reading ...
  • F ~ Week 7 Log May 21, 2013 May 13th, Monday 4 hours reading Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf, reflecting upon my own body, note taking, and drawing. 30 minutes connecting with our peer group, touching base and ...
  • F ~ Week 6 Log May 13, 2013 May 5th, Sunday 3 hours reading and note taking on The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Have Been Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf. 1 hour reading Neuro and configuring notes ...

Bachelardian Reverie

    Poetry

    • F ~ Poem
    • F ~ Poem Internal pain a constant constriction positioned where I cannot see where I cannot know completely which leades to hyper-awareness, constant thought and question focused inward I feel week I feel confused   I am sensitive and vulnerable. I want so badly to curl ...
    • F ~ Poem Soil Sun and Sleep are my Holy Words A whispered rush of blows echo wind          blown   tissue paper petals dissolve is swelling eddies this is my keeping of time where the unraveling of lace measures ...
    • F ~ Poem A body of liquid aged to amber, that never slept yet smelled of dusk a seeker of sanctuary now the lengths between where you are and where I stand is the whisper of wind letting ...
    • F ~ How I Became a Moan How I became a moan a hinged open jaw that is neither a sigh nor a scream yet yields veins to loop bodies to conform to choke to rise lengthening the nape of my neck, lifting ...

    Poetry Observed

    (embedded youtube or Vimeo video will go here)

    Term Paper Abstract

    Download (PDF, 116KB)

     

     

     

    V is for Vessel

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    During this Spring the student will immerse herself in the metaphor of the sacred vessel. Through interactions with texts such as The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Centering by M.C. Richards, the student will respond to these texts via words, images, pottery and poetry, expanding on forms of communication. Where does the sacred feminine meet this earth, and in what sorts of vessels is this conceived, what sort of matter? How can we communicate a deeper connection to the inner feminine by using creative forms of expression? How has the use of language moved us away from a deeper connection to our inner feminine and to our embodied selves? Through learning the skill of throwing pottery the student will use this creative form as a way to connect to her own vessel, her body and womb. She will document this unfolding in a variety of ways, expanding her skills and knowledge in herbalism, poetry, ceramics, drawing, printing, and dancing. The student will also participate in a 4 credit Herbal class, which will allow her to practice using the language and also the medicine and folklore that plants have had to offer throughout time. The goal of this contract, besides gaining skills to use in future endeavors, is to seek an answer to how we interact with vessels and to expand a deeper knowing of the importance and significance of vessels.  How can language relate these embodied experiences and concepts, and how can they not? The student is particularly interested in the boundaries of language. In other words; where does the vessel of language start to overflow? And what vessels of expression will catch the overflow?

    ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

    • V – Week 9 Log June 3, 2013 This week I focused on the transformation within myself, I thought alot about the whole, what did I learn from this quarter as a whole? I taught myself to throw pottery, ...
    • V – Log Week 8 May 26, 2013 I believe what helene cixous was getting at with her own exponential need to write and with expressing the dire need for all women to write, was that we need ...
    • v – Log week 7 May 19, 2013 Week 7: – A week full of difficulty.  Questions pondered: How does the body appear in writing? Why do we Write? Can you write the body, or are words woven to ...
    • V – Log Week 6 May 12, 2013 May 6th Polishing work, Meeting with Sarah, Glazing pieces – taking responsibility for my role with the relationship 3.5 hours May 7th Class (Susan Givertz), 2.5 hours, Reading Perloff chp 6, Plant research, Salal (stalking the wild asparagus/moore) 7 hours May ...
    • V – Log Week 5 (The year of the Water Snake/Feminine Laughter) May 5, 2013 This week has been focused around snakes and what they represent, the historical context surrounding them that have to do with the rise of the alphabet and the decline of ...
    • V – Log Week 4 April 28, 2013 April 23rd – 7 hours Read Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Shlain Responded with poetry and transers, playing with harmonizing word and image. Posted on Wordpress Poetry April 24 – 8 Hours Read Shlain Paper on Healing ...
    • V – Week 3 Log April 23, 2013 Week 3 Log of Hours/Work April 15th – 5 hours I worked on my ILC, fresh back from the Hoh rainforest with lots of inspiration in my pocket! I also read Centering by ...

    Poetry

    • v – Words coming to form… v - Words coming to form...
    • v – Vessels from Spring Vessels from Spring   Attached is a powerpoint of the vessels i created with clay this spring. To me they speak of the process of learning and of embodiment, Enjoy!
    • V – In the beginning…ABC’s.               Autograph Blank Clay Dealt Exposure Formed Grace Hyacinth Igloos Joyously Kindred Lovage Mountains Nesting Over Paradise Quills Ramshackled Snakes Thrilled Universal Vigor Wishing Xylaphones Yawned Zaniously  
    • V – Poppy Pod inspired Vessel The women gifted them to the other allowing displacement of face motionless animals and grief stricken men were humbled by her earthen beauty once upon a time. and yet we know when we ...
    • V – Wedging (poetry in response to pottery)   (Part One to be used in paper) This piece was inspired by “Exercises in Style: Sonnet” and my relation to wedging clay. Here she enters, moving with precision in her deathly stained apron and ...
    • V – Plants of memories The lilacs drift into my nose and force-feed me memories of Ballet on warm Venice evenings -The quarters clinking into the jar- The repitition of bones and memory Jasmine shifting the mind towards my ...
    • V – Reading Response, From Week 3. This is a reading response to “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Leonard Shlain. In the first 50 pages, Shlain goes over the history of how women interacted in the world ...
    • V – Eyes and Hands, Forming Vessels. My hands become the vessel squeezing the clay into shape to center. If I am not centered, the pockets of air cause a wobbling ending in destruction -wedging gone askew. As if I hiccuped and forgot ...
    • V – Healing Paper Sharing with you all a tiny poem I wrote for my Herbal Class:
    • V – (Dandelions and V’s) Harvesting Taraxacum Offcinalis: Oh how the vibrant Yellow of the wide open dandelions rejuvenate my spirit.      Their headlong medicine turns me onto a new page of thought, a thought of ...

    Bachelardian Reverie

    • Neuro Reverie Week 8 May 28, 2013 Liberty.   “Organ in a body of organs” (Neuro, 230) -this thing, this neuro-science science of picking a part apart the pieces. leaving the whole, formed only through pieces pieces holding pieces. we can know the pieces but we cannot ...
    • V – Neuro Reverie week 8 May 21, 2013 Liberty. “…selves are memories, and memories are patterns of synaptic interconnections. How are these patterns of synaptic connections established? it is now ‘experience’ that shapes the patterns ...
    • V – Neuro “Reverie” Week 7 May 14, 2013 “The Mechanism is the growth and pruning of synapses in response to experience – synapses that become “Hard-wired” by repeated use”. (194) Molding molds of children in infancy/in fencing of gardening ...
    • V – Spring Reverie week 6 May 5, 2013 Liberty Peru Neuro Chapter 5 – The Social Brain Inspired by ideas from these two qoutes (and ideas discussed in “Neuro” and “The Vegetative Soul”) “…brain regions shaped by evolution, notably the amygdala, ...

    Term Paper Abstract

    Read full Spring term paper here


    Ab is for Anthology

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    Field Study proposal 

    The student will focus on finalizing the anthology of work generated by the student’s in the program As Poetry Recycles Neurons. She will also continue to explore her passion for letterpress by organizing type at Sherwood Press. She will explore her typographic and design skills as well by formatting the book through Indesign.

    ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

    • Ab – Week 9 Logs. June 2, 2013 Week 9: Monday, May 27 1 hour – read conclusion to Neuro 1 ½ hours – wrote and posted Neuro Reverie on conclusion. 1 hour – looked up Vanessa Place’s Statements of Facts. Found ...
    • Ab – Week 8 Logs. May 26, 2013 Week 8: Monday, May 20 2 hours – Identifying and putting away type at Sherwood Press. 4 ½ hours – working on anthology in Indesign. Tuesday, May 21 2 ½ hours – seminar on last ...
    • Ab – Week 7 logs. May 19, 2013 Week 7: Monday, May 13 1 hour – looking up Kenny Goldsmith’s Traffic and Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend. 1 ½ hours – putting away type at Sherwood Press. 1 ½ hours – adding bibliography to ...
    • Ab – Week 6 Logs. May 12, 2013 Week 6: Monday, May 6 1 hour – sorting type at Sherwood Press 1 ½ hours – revising mid-quarter evaluation. ½ hour – writing reverie on Neuro chapter 5 ½ hour – looking over ...
    • Ab – Week 5 Logs. May 6, 2013 Week 5: Monday, April 29 3 hours – added images into anthology, read about formatting, printed draft. 2 hours – peer review session. Talked about our understanding/confusion of The Midnight. 1 hour – revising ...
    • Week 4 Logs. April 28, 2013 Week 4: Monday, April 22 ½ hour – touching up draft of Seminar Pass. 6 ½ hours – drafting sections of anthology/touching up introduction. 2 hours – Peer review and somatic exercise. ½ ...
    • Ab – Week 3 Logs. April 23, 2013 Week 3: Monday, April 15 2 hours – organizing type at Sherwood Press. 2 hours – peer review and yoga. ½ hour – editing seminar pass. 1 ½ hours – talking about and further planning ...
    • Ab – Week 2 Logs. April 23, 2013 Week 2: Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 Field trip to Hoh Rainforest and Copper Canyon Press. Thursday, April 11th 2 ½ hours – reading and taking notes/creating prompts for poems. 2 hours – working on ...
    • Ab – Week 1 Logs. April 23, 2013 Week 1: Monday, April 1 3 hours – reading Neuro and Perloff. 1 hour – writing seminar pass ½ hour – researching poet from Perloff. 2 hours – peer review session. Tuesday, April 2 6 hours – ...
    • Ab – Spring Break Logs. April 23, 2013 Spring Break: March 25th: 3 hours – working on anthology. Weekly Total: 3 hours Cumulative Total: 3 hours

    Spring Term Paper

    Introduction

    Mimicking the seasons (and our observation of their rhythms) the curricular themes in As Poetry Recycles Neurons: Flocks Of Words, Tracks Of Letters, have shifted, evolved and recycled. The work in this anthology traces that movement from fall through winter quarter.The essays in Part I: Science As A Conversation were written during the fall when we spent time at The Evergreen State College’s Organic Farm. We observed ourselves being drawn to a plant through a method of science known as the Phenomenology of Knowing. This method was introduced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1832), a German poet, artist and naturalist.
    We explored the slippage between art and science and the border between heart and mind while writing research papers that mixed prose and poetry. The form of our research papers followed Craig Holdrege’s Doing Goethean Science and our peppering of poetry throughout mirrored that in Stephan Buhner’s The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature. The section headings in Part I are from Holdrege’s essay and serve as an umbrella for each of our individual voices. Part II: Poetry Of Passions, presents poetry from our winter quarter field studies during which we applied the Goethean method in a month long immersion in a particular passion. Our assignment was to make poetry evoke the experience of our immersion within a passion, as E.L. Doctorow said “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensations in the reader–not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

    This anthology aims to render into language our individual experiences within the shared context of the program, to create for those of us who desire the intimacy of turning a page something tactile: a textured memory of a point in time, kept alive in the body of a book.

    See full Anthology here

    Purchase a copy of the book here