2.8.14

data pools and lacunae and the mystery of rue maunoir

It might be of little relief to we the surveyed to know that the state and corporate data project that gives the illusion of a complete compass or spectrum of knowledge is fatally flawed because it is created purely within its own terms and cannot embrace anything outside those limits. The permanent trace that is gathered from the passage of our bodies and thoughts that purports to form a digital mirror through which our character and intentions may be scried that stalks us like a shadow from cradle to grave and beyond bears little resemblance to reality - unless our reality starts shaping itself with reference to this burgeoning limbo. No amount of data can make things fully knowable, either in the realm of objects or systems, because, philosphically, objects cannot be fully known. (On an astronomical scale we are only able to observe 20% of matter - the rest is inferred). In chess Bobby Fisher drove himself insane trying to memorise the outcomes of possible chess positions. Deep Blue was the first machine to beat a reigning chess world champion using brute force computing and since then machines have become much better at defeating humans. Both chess number crunching and big data are operations within a defined set of outcomes that computers do well. The weather remains reliably unpredictable. The issue here isn't in the respective capacity by computers and humans for data analysis, it is what this analysis represents to us as social, cultural and political beings beyond the banal desirable outcomes envisaged by Silicon Valley. This is well discussed here: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/20/rise-of-data-death-of-politics-evgeny-morozov-algorithmic-regulation

The development of Street View into a real time mapping project, like a real time extension of the Borges map described by Baudrillard as a metaphor for simulation, where images will be updated from photos and CGI moment by moment, is a matter of time. An immersive seamless representation is some way from Street View's present deployment as a series of panoramic views arranged along GPS nodes. As a metaphor for data collection, the visual data gathered by the Google cars has the same stuttering incomplete aspect that any other form of data gathering might have - Street View makes it visible. Glitches in the technology and Googles own editing of the panoramas - blurring out faces and words - as well as faults in the cameras themselves - produce specious images. There isn't a self checking algorithm for them.

Here is a stitching glitch in Carden Avenue
















Image void. This is the castle where a scene from The Vikings was shot
















Here voids, fragmented bodies and truncated cars traverse Checkpoint Charlie
















These images of legless bodies and bodyless legs are from a node in Century Park, Shanghai, but are in fact a nearby plaza.





























Baxters Ridge Trail
















Mount Ventoux
















A Google camera car is snapped in Geneva. In the foreground is a figure dressed in black. One might suppose that the Street View panorama would contain the photographer in the act of snapping the car.





However the particular node corresponding to the position of the car has been removed. From the next panorama down the street a figure stands on the left close to the spot where this photograph was taken.
















In the next panorama, from which the following two images are taken, the figure has vanished and the shadows on the road indicate that it is a different time of day.





























Round the corner the figure in black can be clearly seen in the same position they were photographed at with the Google car. Perhaps the second figure is the photographer, but if this is the case how come the Google car is now photographing them from behind? It is intriguing to try and piece together the movements of the car from these sets of data.
















The progress down the street is a fairly common Street View compilation of panoramas from different days,


















more evident when viewed facing the other way along the street. The figure in black is nowhere to be seen.






22.5.13

dtc and Pisa Explorer














 
  
Pisa Explorer The area once probably occupied by the american Disciplinary Training Center of Metato where Ezra Pound was held.
Before being definitively dismantled in the '50s, the infrastructures of the DTC were used as a refugee camp for the Istrians expelled from Yugoslavia.

 
Mike Stoakes are you sure this is the right place? it's mt taishan but the location of the camp as far as i can research is about 43.762819,10.347637 on google maps



Pisa Explorer Hallo Mike, I'm not sure this is the right place..... I only suppose it is by talking to the locals, from the view of the mountain, from the distance from both track of the airfield and the Serchio river. I apologize for being so inaccurate. I just had I apologize for being so inaccurate. I just had the feelling that was the right place but I'm not able to show any scientific evidence. I will add a "probably" on the description of the photo. Thanks a lot for writing. If you ever come to Pisa let me know so, if you like, we can go to Metato togheter.


Mike Stoakes hi explorer. the descriptions from several sources put it on the road to viareggio - hugh kenner's map shows it just south of the bridge and allen's description i'll post below to name but two but you might have thought the local people would know. i have just looked around the area on street view so can approximately guess where you took your picture. best mike


books.google.co.uk
What stands out so clearly in these "remembrances of things past" is the unmistakable ring of authenticity in every account, a rare quality in the literature of war. Even after 70 years, every recollection remains vivid. Time has done little to dim those parlous times and recollections; they add dep...


Mike Stoakes thanks also for the invite



Mike Stoakes if you are here we can visit stone cottage where it all started - pound and yeats holed up together for three consecutive winters


Mike Stoakes http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdsmith/2280804637/

 
WB Yeats & Ezra Pound rented Stone Cottage, Coleman's Hatch, near Ashdown Forest...See More


Pisa Explorer Thanks for all the material. I will


Pisa Explorer I'll have a look at it later. So interesting. Thanks a lot!


Pisa Explorer Hi Mike, in 2011 a spasish writer, Justo Navarro, has written a very interesting book about Pound in Italy, in Metato and about his relationship with the fascist regime. It's called El espia (The spy) and might have been translated in english too. In the next days I'll go to Metato and see if I have a better luck in finding the Dtc... All the best.


Mike Stoakes hi PE. i don't know if you chose those initials because you are a great fan of EP the poet we are discussing! I don't think pound was a spy. hugh kenner has a map in his book that roughly shows the location of the camp. he puts it just over the bridge from viareggio. i don't know if i can post it to you through a message.

Conversation started April 29 10:39am 

hi PE. here is the map from hugh kenner



















 


http://www.uncg.edu/eng/pound/taishan2.gif







  



Mike Stoakes i think your photo was taken here 43.769777,10.354915 near cassini but from kenner's map it's nearer here 43.755853,10.355741


Pisa Explorer Thanks Mike. So 43.769777,10.354915 is not the place... That's exactly from where I took the photo. From the map on the book it's clear that the DTC was along or very close along the Aurelia, the road that takes to Viareggio, exatly where shows 43.755853,10.355741.

I'll try to find out and report.


Pisa Explorer Neither do I think that EP was a spy, the idea itself is just ridiculous. Surely the writer in this case seems to have been the victim of a sort of a scoop/commercial approach. And also the fact that EP and Angleton knew each other may have played a role.
However, the book it is interesting to read about how EP moved after the armistice with the Allies and the kind of relationships he activated or tried to activate in Rome.
PE has nothing to do with EP. I've always been intrigued by how such a sublime poet has been able to fully identify himself with the Italian fascism and its leader so to become himself a caricature of the perfect Mussolinian and become part of the "operetta".


 

hi PE. this is another article that might help.




Thanks


Mike Stoakes hi PE and thanks for that. wendy flory talks about pound suffering psychosis after the death of gaudier-brzeska, but i would have thought there would have been a lot of appealing things in early fascism to the persona pound constructed and his form of modernism. i have a couple of scanned pictures from the letters which might have some clues for you even though one seems to be mostly of sky. pound could see the road to pisa from the cell. mike

 Thursday
   


















11:20am



















11:51am
in this photo there are some buildings quite close to the camp. the satellite view in google maps shows some interesting crop marks in the field north of via delle catene madonna d acqua, a suitable name for a road by a prison.



















12:15pm
the photo of sky by col. julien h le page was taken from dtc 004 (in 1994). he was an officer at the camp.