Phil Baber

Contact: e-mail, or: Oudeschans 35, 1011 KT Amsterdam, NL

September 2011 — ⧣ + 02.01

A. A violent order is a disorder; and
B. A great disorder is an order. These
Two things are one. (Pages of illustrations.)

May 2010–September 2011 — Mute Objects of Expression

“Go away,” says the stone.
“I’m shut tight.
Even if you break me to pieces,
we’ll all still be closed.
You can grind us to sand,
we still won’t let you in.”

May 2010 — The Most Beautiful Swiss Books 2009 (The Future Issue)

Apparently we read only because what is written is already there, laying itself out before our eyes. Apparently. But the first one to write, the one who cut into stone and wood under ancient skies, was hardly responding to the demands of a view requiring a reference point and giving it a meaning; rather, he was changing all relations between seeing and the visible. What he left behind was not something more, something added to other things; it was not even something less – a subtraction of matter, a hollow in relation to a relief. Then what was it? A gap in the universe: nothing that was visible, nothing invisible. I suppose the first reader was engulfed by this non-absent absence, but without knowing anything about it. And there was no second reader because reading, from now on understood as the vision of a presence immediately visible, that is to say intelligible, was affirmed precisely in order to make this disappearance into the absence of the book impossible.

October 2009 — Mont Analogue No.1, Theatre of Thought

He perceived all the strangeness there was in being observed by a word as if by a living being, and not simply by one word, but by all the words that were in that word, by all those that went with it and in turn contained other words, like a procession of angels opening out into the infinite to the very eye of the absolute.

June 2009 — Cannon Magazine No.1

I wandered through the courtyards and galleries, on the ramparts and glacis, in the fortified and covered ways, and along the watchman’s paths. It seemed to me I was inside someone’s head. This masterly, complicated, and well-conceived construction of impregnable breastworks, bastions, salients, and redoubts appeared to me like a petrified cast of the brain, and in these halls of stone, among the iron grilles and the chevaux de frise, I stumped along on my crutches, aggressive and vicious as a crippled thought inside the mind of man, thought in its solitude, thought in its liberty. Every opening on to the outside world is an embrasure for a cannon

June 2009 — The Growler / Brööl

Let us cross a great modern capital
with our ears more alert than our eyes
and we will get enjoyment from distinguishing the eddying of water, air and gas in metal pipes,
the grumbling noises that breathe and pulse with indisputable animility,
the palpitation of waves,
the coming and going of pistons,
the howl of mechanical saws,
the jolting of the tram on its rails,
the cracking of whips,
the flapping of curtains and flags.
We enjoy creating mental orchestrations of the crashing down of metal shop blinds,
slamming doors,
the hubbub and shuffle of crowds,
the variety of din from the stations,
railways,
iron foundries,
spinning mills,
printing works,
electric power stations,
and underground railways.

May 2008 — Right Write Wright

The red book was on the table. The unread book was on the table. The read book was on the table. A well read book lay on the shelf. That is a seldom seen occurrence. That is a seldom (often) seen occurrence. That is a well (often) unread book. That is a seldom (often) tragic occurrence. That is a well red book. The book remains to be read. The book remains to be red. The book’s remains are red. The book remains to be unread.

April 2008 — REPRODUCED FROM THE BEST AVAILABLE COPY

FADE IN: Folds of blue velvet undulate ever so slowly. DISSOLVE TO:

March 2008 — Maria

I saw a doctor, a doctor. It was Anton Artaud. He was selected for the Royal Academy, no, that was Chekhov. This is the Russian Theatre, it’s 1962 or so, the moralist of the venial sin is here, resigning over Gorky. Doctor, a doctor. “The Seagull” defends Zola and Dreyfus, it’s the Moscow Art Theatre. Chekhov is Godard. This is what I learned in school. This is what I thought: Artuad, Antonin.

December 2007 — The Structure of Information

knowledge meaning mental stimulus pattern perception representation Morph eidos Plato (Aristotle) Theory of forms thought proposition concept message repetition message sender sender observation Communication theory information entropy Claude Shannon below Fisher information R. A. Fisher estimation theory likelihood function “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” information theory logarithm self information choice unit for measuring information bits J. W. Turkey algorithmic information theory program statistically random input organism (energy) nervous system abstract painting Entertainment Music performing arts amusement parks fiction DNA nucleotides Systems theory feedback knowledge knowledge management knowledge worker metadata context knowledge recommendations competitive advantage Marshall McLuhan media artefacts pheromones repetition Physical information 2003 J. D. Bekenstein physics Digital physics Maxwell’s Demon entropy energy logic gates quantum computers records management corporate memory semiotics Pragmatics Semantics Syntax lexicographic information costs Abstraction Accuracy and precision Classified information Complexity Complex adaptive system Complex system Cybernetics Data storage device Recording medium Exformation Free Information Infrastructure Freedom of information Gregory Bateson Infodynamics Information and communication technologies Information architecture Information broker Information continuum Information geometry Information ladder Information mapping Information overload Information processor Information sensitivity Information systems Information superhighway Informology Infornography Infosphere Lexicographic information cost Library science Meta-information in linguistics Philosophy of information Prediction Propaganda model Receiver operating characteristic Relevance Shannon–Hartley theorem