Pause.Fervour: Reflections on a Pandemic

Initiated by the COVID-19 crisis, Pause. Fervour. Reflections on a Pandemic is a collaborative effort by the Harun Farocki Institut, Journal of Visual Culture, and all the project’s contributors. At the beginning of the first wave, an invitation/call for participation was sent out to artists, designers, editors, collaborations and collectives, activists, educators, curators, filmmakers, administrators, culture workers, and scholars of Anthropology, Architecture, Critical Legal Theory, Art History, Museology, Critical Race Theory, Design and Urban Studies, Environmental Studies, Philosophy, and Visual Cultures. The call was sent to Journal of Visual Culture’s Editorial Board, and a wide selection of previous contributors and members of its extended communities, describing the task as follows: ‘The SARS-Cov-2 crisis is, will be, and will have been so many things – a disastrous event of unknown scale, an individual and collective tragedy, a historical turning point, a huge biopolitical experiment, and so much more. At the same time, attempts to act responsibly, caringly, solidarily in the face of this global catastrophe are overwhelming. The planetary dimension of the crisis seems to put everything into question, likewise affecting the knowledge production, visual practice, critical theory, political organizing, scholarly enterprises, research communities to which we are committed (and which are experiencing existential and epistemological shockwave after shockwave on a daily basis). There is a lot of spontaneous, ad hoc opinion-making and premature commentary around, as to be expected. However, the ethics and politics of artistic and theoretical practice to be pursued in this situation should oblige us to stay cautious and to intervene with care in the discussion.’ As one of JVC’s editors put it in our informal conversations: ‘We are not looking for sensationalism, but rather, moments of reflection that: make connections between what’s happening now and the larger intellectual contexts that our readership shares; to offer small ways to be reflective and to draw on tools we have and things we know instead of just feeling numb and overwhelmed; help serve as intellectual community for one another while we are isolated; support the work of being thoughtful and trying to find/make meaning…which is always a collective endeavour, even if we are forced to be apart.’ As we were forced to be apart, joining forces in this collective endeavour made this a project in mutual aid. The 48 contributions secured are arranged here into four sections on: the pandemical logic of very late capitalism; lockdown life; biopolitics and governmentality; and new ways of caring. Equal part powerful and moving, angry and heartbreaking, righteous and desperate, hopeless and demanding of a better future, together this polyphony posits if not an actual antidote then certainly abundant curative reflections to the disease and ways we might navigate this on going crisis. Contributors: Danah Abdulla; Elisa Adami; Alexandra Délano Alphonso; Edinson Arroyo; Art Catalyst with Gary Zhezi Zhang and Valeria Graziano, Marcell Mars, and Tomislav Medak (Pirate Care); Oreet Asheery; Nika Autor; Daniel A. Barber; Jordan Baseman; Dave Beech; Sara Blaylock; Katarzyna Bojarska; Kimberly Juanita Brown; Eray Çayli; Teresa Cisneros; Tom Corby; David Dibosa; Death Class; Ruth Ewan; Alessandra Ferrini; Janine Francois; Lina Hakim; Juliet Jacques; Kelene Hazan; Dean Kenning; Margareta Kern; Lana Lin and H. Lan Thao Lam; Yve Lomax; Laura U. Marks; Shannon Mattern; Jordan McKenzie; Joel McKim; Vladimir Milandinović and Stephanie Young; Philip Miller and Maros Martins; Hana Noorali and Lynton Talbot; Bahar Noorizadeh; The Partisan Social Club; Andreas Philippouloulos-Mihalopoulos; Pil and Galia Kollektiv; Plastique Fantastique; Amit S. Rai; John Paul Recco; Vanessa Schwartz; Jelena Stojković; Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead; Atej Tutta and Valeria Cozarini; Isobel Wohl; and Andrea Luka Zimmerman. Pause. Fervour. Reflections on a Pandemic is co-published by the Harun Farocki Institut and Journal of Visual Culture, designed by Simon Pavič, and edited by Manca Bajec, Tom Holert, and Marquard Smith

Homeostatic Modulation of Stimulation-Dependent Plasticity in Human Motor Cortex

Since recently, it is possible, using noninvasive cortical stimulation, such as the protocol of paired associative stimulation (PAS), to induce the plastic changes in the motor cortex, in humans that mimic Hebb's model of learning. Application of TMS conjugated with peripheral electrical stimulation at strictly coherent temporal manner lead to convergence of inputs in the sensory-motor cortex, with the consequent synaptic potentiation or weakening, if applied repetitively. However, when optimal interstimulus interval (ISI) for induction of LTP-like effects is applied as a single pair, Motor evoked potential (MEP) amplitude inhibition is observed, the paradigm known as short-latency afferent inhibition (SLAI). Aiming to resolve this paradox, PAS protocols were applied, with 200 repetitions of TMS pulses paired with median nerve electrical stimulation, at ISI equal to individual latencies of evoked response of somatosensory cortex (N-20) (PASLTP), and at ISI of N-20 shortened for 5 msec (PASLTD) protocols that mimic LTP-like changes in the human motor cortex. MEP amplitudes before, during and after interventions were measured as an indicator based on output signals originating from the motor system. Post-intervention MEP amplitudes following the TMS protocols of PASLTP and PASLTD were facilitated and depressed, respectively, contrary to MEP amplitudes during intervention. During PASLTP MEP amplitudes were significantly decreased in case of PASLTP, while in the case of PASLTD an upward trend was observed. In conclusions, a possible explanation for the seemingly paradoxical effect of PAS can be found in the mechanism of homeostatic modulation of plasticity. Those findings indicate the existence of complex relationships in the development of plasticity induced by stimulation, depending on the level of the previous motor cortex excitability

Some Causes of the Variable Shape of Flocks of Birds

Flocks of birds are highly variable in shape in all contexts (while travelling, avoiding predation, wheeling above the roost). Particularly amazing in this respect are the aerial displays of huge flocks of starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) above the sleeping site at dawn. The causes of this variability are hardly known, however. Here we hypothesise that variability of shape increases when there are larger local differences in movement behaviour in the flock. We investigate this hypothesis with the help of a model of the self-organisation of travelling groups, called StarDisplay, since such a model has also increased our understanding of what causes the oblong shape of schools of fish. The flocking patterns in the model prove to resemble those of real birds, in particular of starlings and rock doves. As to shape, we measure the relative proportions of the flock in several ways, which either depend on the direction of movement or do not. We confirm that flock shape is usually more variable when local differences in movement in the flock are larger. This happens when a) flock size is larger, b) interacting partners are fewer, c) the flock turnings are stronger, and d) individuals roll into the turn. In contrast to our expectations, when variability of speed in the flock is higher, flock shape and the positions of members in the flock are more static. We explain this and indicate the adaptive value of low variability of speed and spatial restriction of interaction and develop testable hypotheses

Superfluid transport of information in turning flocks of starlings

Collective decision-making in biological systems requires all individuals in the group to go through a behavioural change of state. During this transition, the efficiency of information transport is a key factor to prevent cohesion loss and preserve robustness. The precise mechanism by which natural groups achieve such efficiency, though, is currently not fully understood. Here, we present an experimental study of starling flocks performing collective turns in the field. We find that the information to change direction propagates across the flock linearly in time with negligible attenuation, hence keeping group decoherence to a minimum. This result contrasts with current theories of collective motion, which predict a slower and dissipative transport of directional information. We propose a novel theory whose cornerstone is the existence of a conserved spin current generated by the gauge symmetry of the system. The theory turns out to be mathematically identical to that of superfluid transport in liquid helium and it explains the dissipationless propagating mode observed in turning flocks. Superfluidity also provides a quantitative expression for the speed of propagation of the information, according to which transport must be swifter the stronger the group's orientational order. This prediction is verified by the data. We argue that the link between strong order and efficient decision-making required by superfluidity may be the adaptive drive for the high degree of behavioural polarization observed in many living groups. The mathematical equivalence between superfluid liquids and turning flocks is a compelling demonstration of the far-reaching consequences of symmetry and conservation laws across different natural systems

The Biomolecular Interaction Network Database and related tools 2005 update

The Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND) (http://bind.ca) archives biomolecular interaction, reaction, complex and pathway information. Our aim is to curate the details about molecular interactions that arise from published experimental research and to provide this information, as well as tools to enable data analysis, freely to researchers worldwide. BIND data are curated into a comprehensive machine-readable archive of computable information and provides users with methods to discover interactions and molecular mechanisms. BIND has worked to develop new methods for visualization that amplify the underlying annotation of genes and proteins to facilitate the study of molecular interaction networks. BIND has maintained an open database policy since its inception in 1999. Data growth has proceeded at a tremendous rate, approaching over 100 000 records. New services provided include a new BIND Query and Submission interface, a Standard Object Access Protocol service and the Small Molecule Interaction Database (http://smid.blueprint.org) that allows users to determine probable small molecule binding sites of new sequences and examine conserved binding residues

Incidental sounds of locomotion in animal cognition

The highly synchronized formations that characterize schooling in fish and the flight of certain bird groups have frequently been explained as reducing energy expenditure. I present an alternative, or complimentary, hypothesis that synchronization of group movements may improve hearing perception. Although incidental sounds produced as a by-product of locomotion (ISOL) will be an almost constant presence to most animals, the impact on perception and cognition has been little discussed. A consequence of ISOL may be masking of critical sound signals in the surroundings. Birds in flight may generate significant noise; some produce wing beats that are readily heard on the ground at some distance from the source. Synchronization of group movements might reduce auditory masking through periods of relative silence and facilitate auditory grouping processes. Respiratory locomotor coupling and intermittent flight may be other means of reducing masking and improving hearing perception. A distinct border between ISOL and communicative signals is difficult to delineate. ISOL seems to be used by schooling fish as an aid to staying in formation and avoiding collisions. Bird and bat flocks may use ISOL in an analogous way. ISOL and interaction with animal perception, cognition, and synchronized behavior provide an interesting area for future study

The CHEMDNER corpus of chemicals and drugs and its annotation principles

The automatic extraction of chemical information from text requires the recognition of chemical entity mentions as one of its key steps. When developing supervised named entity recognition (NER) systems, the availability of a large, manually annotated text corpus is desirable. Furthermore, large corpora permit the robust evaluation and comparison of different approaches that detect chemicals in documents. We present the CHEMDNER corpus, a collection of 10,000 PubMed abstracts that contain a total of 84,355 chemical entity mentions labeled manually by expert chemistry literature curators, following annotation guidelines specifically defined for this task. The abstracts of the CHEMDNER corpus were selected to be representative for all major chemical disciplines. Each of the chemical entity mentions was manually labeled according to its structure-associated chemical entity mention (SACEM) class: abbreviation, family, formula, identifier, multiple, systematic and trivial. The difficulty and consistency of tagging chemicals in text was measured using an agreement study between annotators, obtaining a percentage agreement of 91. For a subset of the CHEMDNER corpus (the test set of 3,000 abstracts) we provide not only the Gold Standard manual annotations, but also mentions automatically detected by the 26 teams that participated in the BioCreative IV CHEMDNER chemical mention recognition task. In addition, we release the CHEMDNER silver standard corpus of automatically extracted mentions from 17,000 randomly selected PubMed abstracts. A version of the CHEMDNER corpus in the BioC format has been generated as well. We propose a standard for required minimum information about entity annotations for the construction of domain specific corpora on chemical and drug entities. The CHEMDNER corpus and annotation guidelines are available at: http://www.biocreative.org/resources/biocreative-iv/chemdner-corpus