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General Culture and
other fields of interest:
ART
- Photography:especially searching for unusual
viewpoints,"viewangles", patterns, tracking details in the
textures of rocks and their transformation through time (erosion process,
strata erasing, emergence of new patterns and designs: studying the
"Action Painting" of time and recording it.
- I visited a great number of European Museums
of Modern Art (London, Paris, Stuttgart, Oslo, Stockholm,
Copenhagen, Amsterdam), the GUIMET Museum of Oriental Art in Paris,
the Accra Museum (Ghana) and a permanent exhibition of handicrafts
in Kpalimé (Togo), the MOMA (Metropolitan Museum of Modern
Art ) and the Guggenheim Museum in NEW-YORK , the Museum of Sciences
and Technology and the Natural History Museum in Washington DC).
CINEMA/VIDEO
- Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi in 1983 and "Powaqaatsi " in 1988 , now Naqoyqaatsi
(2001) produced
by par Francis Ford Coppola with PHILIP GLASS music.
The first is a projection of a different, shifted in a way, perception
of the world and of natural dynamic phenomena by cut-up processes
of time acceleration or expansion.
The second tries to show the human, social , cultural variety of our
planet in a colored, dynamic and moving way.
The last one, with a fast image chaining, quite brutal, illustrates
the impacts of Technology on Society and Man in general.
- An Image synthesis
short film, with a curious soundtrack emphasizing the color and light micro-changes on a 3D representation
of New-York skyscrapers, from sunrise to sunset, a static representation
at first sight (during the first 3 minutes).
Attempt to focus people attention on the micro-changes and maybe to
modify their brain rythms: a Brian ENO creation, exposed at the Museum of Modern
Art in Amsterdam in 1986.
- "Usual Suspects", with Kevin
Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Gabriel Byrne
- "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest",
with Jack Nicholson, William Sampson, Christopher Lloyd, Dany De Vito:
adapted from Ken Kesey's best-seller.
- "The
Hours", with Meryl STREEP, Nicole KIDMAN, Julianne MOORE:
adapted from Michael Cunningham's novel
: entanglement of 3 women lives in 3 different times, one of them
the outstanding writer: Virginia Woolf
- "Magnolia",
directed by Thomas A. ANDERSON
- "Will Hunting" , with Matt
Damon and Robin Williams
- "A beautiful mind", with
Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, adapted from Sylvia
Nasar's investigation work about John
Nash's life.
- WIM WENDERS films , where appear the wandering
and poetic features of Man:
" The wings of desire "
, " PARIS-TEXAS " , " To the ends of Earth " in
1991 , exploration of the human mind (brain signals converted to sounds
and images using transducers, sensors) the action takes place in the
"Dream" land, the australian "bush".
- Movies about extreme situations
: ALAN PARKER 's "Midnight
Express" and "Birdy", Stephen FREARS "Down all
the days ,Christy Brown" in 1991, KONCHALOVSKY 's "Runaway
Train" in 1987, "Macadam COWBOY", David LYNCH's "Elephant
Man"
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MUSIC
- ROCK, BLUES, Ethnic
music,
The White Stripes (Jack and Meg White), Dobet Gnahore (African singer from Benin),Joe SATRIANI, Stevie Ray VAUGHAN, Robert FRIPP, KING CRIMSON, Frank
ZAPPA, Fishbone, Rage Against the Machine, Beck, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The
CLASH, Bad Religion, Green Day, Jethro Tull, Ben HARPER, Aimee MANN,
John Trudell, Stewart Copeland, Laurie ANDERSON, Peter Gabriel, Philip
GLASS, Burundi Drum Masters, Aboriginal Music, Ravi Shankar and indian
ragas.
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LITTERATURE
- Italian
writers: Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco (
" The Name of the Rose" prodigious writing architecture
! , "Foucault's pendulum").
- Latin American writers:
Jorge AMADO (Brasilian mythology, capoeira ),
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (Colombian), Paulo Coelho (Brasilian ,"
The Alchemist")
- Writers-Adventurers:
Bruce Chatwin, "The song of the tracks" .
- Metaphysical
writers-Philosophers: Khalil GIBRAN, "
The Prophet", Paulo COELHO, Stefan ZWEIG , " AMOK ".
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Science-Fiction and Fantasy writers: Frank
HERBERT ( " DUNE " ), ISAAC ASIMOV (" FOUNDATION "),
STEPHEN KING (" It" et " The Plague" ).
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SCIENCES
- see
pdf document: "Consulted
books"
- Scientific
writers:
Murray GELL-MANN (outstanding encyclopedic
knowledge), Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico : Nobel Prize in Physics
(Quantum Chromodynamics) with Richard Feynman, «The Quark and
the Jaguar », Treaty of Complex Adaptative Systems (we
are members of)
James GLEICK, « Chaos »,
Simon Singh, "Fermat's Last Theorem","History
of secret codes: from ancient Egypt to quantum computer"
Alain Berthoz, CNRS -UMR7124, Perception
and Action Physiology Lab, "The Decision",
Antonio Damasio, "Descartes's Error:
Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain" and "The Feeling of
What Happens".
Réda Benkirane, "Complexity:
vertigos and promises - 18 stories of sciences" : interviews
with Edgar Morin, Ilya Prigogine, Francisco Varela, Neil Gershenfeld,
Christopher Langton,
Gregory Chaitin, Laurent Nottale, Michel Serres, etc.
Carl SAGAN (" COSMOS ") , Steven
WEINBERG and Steven HAWKING (astrophysicists),
Boris Cyrulnik, ethologist, specialised
in cognitive sciences
Anthropologists, Philosophers: Gregory BATESON
, Jean BAUDRILLARD.
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Energy - Environment and
Terrestrial Ecosystem: issues and stakes before 2050
- Main Lines of action and care (to my mind)
- Protection of Earth and animal species
- Making grow the mutual respect, the respect of any differences
(cultures and beliefs)
- Mutual aid, enhanced effective communication, enhanced understanding.
- Giving up short-term thinking strategies and "surface"
communication and choosing a deeper consideration of the actions
of each human being.
Integrating the concept of interdependence : interdependence of
each life, impact of each action and each behaviour on this world.
- Energy:
The information society lies upon the sound operation of energy-production
and transportation infrastructures.
The needs in energy (electrical or other) are keeping on growing,
with "heavy weights" like the U.S, increase of needs in
China, India, etc.
A fact is the steadily decrease of terrestrial hydrocarbon resources,
with estimated dates of deep deficit at the horizon 2050 - 2070.
There is then an urgent need to develop soft technologies to produce
energy (solar energy, wind, energy production from produced and not
consumed agriculture elements (agricultural wheat surplus, colza,
etc.) or innovative new technologies to produce energy (research results
from nanotechnologies ?)
- Environment and Terrestrial Ecosystem:
Carbon Dioxid Greenhouse Effect - Climatic issues of warming:
Extension of scientific studies for estimating and simulating the
consequences of warming. Communication and Broadcasting of scientific
reports or simulation video documents intended for a general audience.
Possible consequences:
Growth of water level, immersion even of certain geographical areas
implying displacement of populations, behaviours of nomadism, constraint
for some, chosen for others.
Extended use of remote communication and working means.
Temperature increase of several degrees, very hot summers, excessive
rainfall:
Development of adapted living stations or new habitations (for instance,
marine living stations - building of artificial living platforms,
including equipment for information access and energy production -
submarine living stations - starting of feasibility pilot studies).
- Society - Behaviours:
Extension of frugality regarding the use of energy (how to behave
to consume less ?)
Within the coming decades, accentuated demarcation of creation-oriented
jobs (art, sculpture, writing, cinema, theater) along knowledge transfer-oriented
jobs (teaching, training) and technology-oriented jobs (I.T, production
of energy, research on new materials).
Development of care-oriented jobs and jobs related to the social mutual
aid (requiring care-related skills: psychology, communication, health
care).
Steady presence of jobs providing food, dressing trade, building trade,etc.
Extension of the use of public transport, of ride sharing (may strengthen
the social links...)
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