The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964-1986

The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964-1986 Joel and Lila Harnetl Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, VA September 16 to December 3, 2006 We are very pleased to present this traveling exhibition of artwork from the collection of the Museum of Nonconformist Art, Pushkinskaya 10 Art Centre, St. Petersburg, Russia, presented within the context of a re-created apartment exhibition from Leningrad. [...] To our knowledge, [...] The Space of Freedom is the first exhibition organized in the United States to focus on both the artwork shown in communal apartments and on the exhibition space of the apartments themselves as a significant part of the history of Russian art. However, this is not a re-creation of a specific apartment exhibition; the art on view is a representative selection of work that was displayed at various such exhibitions between 1964 and 1986, including several pieces by the most important figures in the history of these exhibitions and in the history of nonconformist painting. These forty-six works have never before been exhibited together or in such an installation outside of Russia.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/exhibition-catalogs/1004/thumbnail.jp

Emergent Design

Explorations in Systems Phenomenology in Relation to Ontology, Hermeneutics and the Meta-dialectics of Design SYNOPSIS A Phenomenological Analysis of Emergent Design is performed based on the foundations of General Schemas Theory. The concept of Sign Engineering is explored in terms of Hermeneutics, Dialectics, and Ontology in order to define Emergent Systems and Metasystems Engineering based on the concept of Meta-dialectics. ABSTRACT Phenomenology, Ontology, Hermeneutics, and Dialectics will dominate our inquiry into the nature of the Emergent Design of the System and its inverse dual, the Meta-system. This is an speculative dissertation that attempts to produce a philosophical, mathematical, and theoretical view of the nature of Systems Engineering Design. Emergent System Design, i.e., the design of yet unheard of and/or hitherto non-existent Systems and Metasystems is the focus. This study is a frontal assault on the hard problem of explaining how Engineering produces new things, rather than a repetition or reordering of concepts that already exist. In this work the philosophies of E. Husserl, A. Gurwitsch, M. Heidegger, J. Derrida, G. Deleuze, A. Badiou, G. Hegel, I. Kant and other Continental Philosophers are brought to bear on different aspects of how new technological systems come into existence through the midwifery of Systems Engineering. Sign Engineering is singled out as the most important aspect of Systems Engineering. We will build on the work of Pieter Wisse and extend his theory of Sign Engineering to define Meta-dialectics in the form of Quadralectics and then Pentalectics. Along the way the various ontological levels of Being are explored in conjunction with the discovery that the Quadralectic is related to the possibility of design primarily at the Third Meta-level of Being, called Hyper Being. Design Process is dependent upon the emergent possibilities that appear in Hyper Being. Hyper Being, termed by Heidegger as Being (Being crossed-out) and termed by Derrida as Differance, also appears as the widest space within the Design Field at the third meta-level of Being and therefore provides the most leverage that is needed to produce emergent effects. Hyper Being is where possibilities appear within our worldview. Possibility is necessary for emergent events to occur. Hyper Being possibilities are extended by Wild Being propensities to allow the embodiment of new things. We discuss how this philosophical background relates to meta-methods such as the Gurevich Abstract State Machine and the Wisse Metapattern methods, as well as real-time architectural design methods as described in the Integral Software Engineering Methodology. One aim of this research is to find the foundation for extending the ISEM methodology to become a general purpose Systems Design Methodology. Our purpose is also to bring these philosophical considerations into the practical realm by examining P. Bourdieu’s ideas on the relationship between theoretical and practical reason and M. de Certeau’s ideas on practice. The relationship between design and implementation is seen in terms of the Set/Mass conceptual opposition. General Schemas Theory is used as a way of critiquing the dependence of Set based mathematics as a basis for Design. The dissertation delineates a new foundation for Systems Engineering as Emergent Engineering based on General Schemas Theory, and provides an advanced theory of Design based on the understanding of the meta-levels of Being, particularly focusing upon the relationship between Hyper Being and Wild Being in the context of Pure and Process Being

A Russian philosopher: The life and work of Semen Liudvigovich Frank, 1877-1950.

This thesis offers the first full-length historical biography of Semen Frank. Frank is well-known as one of the most important representatives of Russian 20th century philosophy, and as a contributor to the famous collection of essays of 1909, Vekhi. Apart from that, he is a slightly obscure figure. This thesis attempts to rectify that by putting his work in the context of his time and his own personal Journey. It reveals the extent to which his philosophical Journey was a response to personal problems, how his thought was In some way confessional. Frank's philosophy was closely linked to his religious ideas and experiences, and this biography outlines the motives and landmarks of his spiritual Journey. In addition it shows how his ideas, even those which were most abstract, were often responses to contemporary social challenges. Although the thesis contains a lot of information and comment about Frank's philosophical ideas and development, its focus is primarily historical. In providing a detailed account of Frank's life both in Russia and in emigration, it offers an insight into the dilemmas of the generation who were forced to leave Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. The thesis contains a lot of new information about Frank's life and work. In particular, this involves material from the archives in Moscow and St Petersburg, from the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University in Jew York and the Solzhenitsyn Archive in Vermont, and from correspondence and family papers held in private hands. It has also benefited from extensive Interviews with Frank's sons and daughter and other friends

The psychasthenia of deep space: evaluating the 'reassertion of space in critical social history'

The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed `spatial turn' in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new `structure of feeling' towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja's misunderstanding of Borges' story The Aleph, argues for an `alephic vision', an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an `ecstatic vision', which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the `respatialization' literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain `real world' phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final `speculative epilogue' I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates

Ten Years of Gurevich's Abstract State Machines

Ten Years of Gurevich's Abstract State Machine