{"id":51856,"date":"2016-08-06T20:37:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-06T20:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=51856"},"modified":"2016-08-06T22:13:15","modified_gmt":"2016-08-06T22:13:15","slug":"on-the-topology-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=51856","title":{"rendered":"On the topology of dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — a poem that’s far too philosophical to work as poetry, Laram\u00e9e\u2019s Apparatus<\/em>, and Alyce Santoro’s philosoprops <\/em>]
\n.<\/p>\n

The logic of poetry is, m\u00e1s o menos<\/em>, dream logic, and so I’ve been pondering the logic of dreams and recently wrote this not terribly poetic poem:<\/p>\n

The egg at the conjuror\u2019s table<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a topology of dreams.
\nOut beyond Riemann and names I have yet to learn,
\nthere are configurations of space:
\npast Boole, dreams have their logics.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Take an egg.
\nWith a tap of the wand, crack it open,
\nlet it fall apart so precisely
\nthe two half-shells could again fit together,
\novoid, seamlessly,
\nalmost an egg.
\nCatch white and yolk in a glass.
\nToss up and catch the half shell in your left hand
\nholding the right steady,
\nbring them together, there\u2019s a fit,
\na logic to it, a topology, one
\nto one, across many thousands of facets
\nof fragile, broken shell.
\nBreak another egg so preciely
\nthe left half of ts shell would match exactly
\nthe right half of the first,
\nbring them together,
\nthe fit is exact by definition,
\nbrown shell with speckled,
\nbut there is loss of logic, the thing is surreal,
\nan egg not an egg at all.
\nHolding the half-shell in your right hand
\nface upwards, pour into it
\nyolk and white of the same egg,
\nthe heart of the egg filling its own shell,
\nthe fit ovoid, but better:
\nthe original yolk united with its familiar shell.
\nCover shell and all with a handkerchief,
\nred, green, blue,
\nwhisk it away, and the egg vanishes —
\nor appears, whole.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

There are logics, topologies,
\naffinities beyond the exact match
\nof shell and shell,
\nand so between times, places,
\npeople in dreams \u2013
\nthe half hovel, half cathedral
\nwith its walkways among lily ponds, the koi,
\ndusk in one century dawn in another,
\nher youth your old age your youth again, time
\ncracked open so precisely,
\nits yolk, meaning,
\nits moments an exact match across centuries,
\nits half-shell a perch for Venus,
\nits wholeness Faberg\u00e9,
\nits yolk, tempera mixed by Giotto,
\nmeaning, tempera, Assisi,
\ngesso, the chalk cliffs of Dover, the sea..
\nThere is a harmony of the whole,
\nof the broken unbroken,
\nnamed yet unnameable, unspeakable,
\nthere is a logic.
\nthere is a topology of the sundries of dreams,
\na mathematics to this matching
\nof thou with i,
\nof words, asleep, awake, of dusk to dawn, with all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Recognising that it belongs in a category she might call philosopoetry, I sent it to my friend, the artist Alyce Santoro<\/strong>, author of the remarkable Philosoprops: A Unified Field Guide<\/a>><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

I’m a lucky fellow. <\/p>\n

Today, via 3 Quarks Daily<\/strong><\/a>, I ran across this quote from Walter Bejamin<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

I had suffered very much from the din in my room. Last night the dream retained this. I found myself in front of a map and, at the same time, in the landscape which was depicted on it. The landscape was incredibly gloomy and bleak, and it wasn\u2019t possible to say whether its desolation was merely a craggy wasteland or empty grey ground populated only by capital letters. These letters drifted curvily on their base, just as if they were following the mountain range; the words formed from these letters were more or less remote from each other. I knew, or came to know, that I was in the labyrinth of the ear canal. The map was at the same time a map of hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s something darkly Borgesian<\/strong> about that quote, eh? But it certainly illuminates dream topology, and even moreso, the topology of the relationship of dream to waking<\/strong>, itself worth comparing with the relationship of map to territory<\/strong>, word to referent<\/strong><\/a>, and indeed moon to finger<\/strong> with which Count Korzybski<\/strong>, Lao Tzu<\/strong>, and the Zen poets are each so notably concerned.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Tunneling on through, I find myself contemplating one of Alyce’s inspirations — Eve Andr\u00e9e Laram\u00e9e<\/strong>\u2019s Apparatus for the Distillation of Vague Intuitions<\/em>, shown in Mass MoCA<\/strong>‘s 2000-2001 exhibition Unnatural Science<\/a>, from 2000 \u2013 2001:<\/p>\n

\"laramee\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A detail from that work illustrates the etching of certain phrases into the glass — in this case, the words polysemy <\/em>and misconception<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"7. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The display is characterized in this piece from Art & Science Jounral<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Apparatus for the Distillation of Vague Intuitions<\/em> by American artist Eve Andr\u00e9e Laram\u00e9e consists of an array of tall metal stands, clamps, PVC tubings, glass beakers, flasks and vials. Although much of the equipment looks standard from afar, the installation is a dysfunctional and mythological sort of laboratory that highlights the inherent but often unnoticed subjectivity in scientific inquiry. [ .. ]<\/p>\n

In this fantastical and visually dazzling Apparatus, many of the glassware are hand-blown with various cloudy or luminous turquoise solutions and copper wires attached to large exotic flowers contributing to the spectacle of a giant chemistry experiment gone amok.<\/p>\n

Upon close inspection, a second level of complexity is revealed by the seemingly unscientific words and phrases such as \u201cHANDFULS\u201d, \u201cLEAP IN THE DARK\u201d and \u201cUNNECESSARY EXPLANATORY PRINCIPLES\u201d delicately etched into the glass, exposing a sense of insecurity and imprecision behind the process of science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

My Egg at the conjuror\u2019s table<\/strong> is really more a philosoprop, to use Alyce’s coinage, than what many expect a poem to be, and likewise Laram\u00e9e\u2019s Apparatus<\/strong> more a philosoprop than what many expect an artwork to be.<\/p>\n

Philosoprops<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The word philosoprop is a portmanteau of philosophy (love of wisdom) and either prop (theatrical property) or propaganda (influential communication), depending. A philosoprop is a device, implement, or illustration \u2013 crafted or discovered ready-made \u2013 that can be used for the purpose of demonstrating a concept or sparking a dialog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s talk..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — a poem that’s far too philosophical to work as poetry, Laram\u00e9e\u2019s Apparatus, and Alyce Santoro’s philosoprops ] . The logic of poetry is, m\u00e1s o menos, dream logic, and so I’ve been pondering the logic of dreams and recently wrote this not terribly poetic poem: The egg at the conjuror\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1163,384,526,24,21,694,1386,418,218,741,855,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3qd","category-art","category-charles-cameron","category-cognition","category-creativity","category-dreams","category-intuitive","category-logic","category-philosophy","category-poetry","category-tao","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51856"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51879,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856\/revisions\/51879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}