problem with the theme Glenta We examine “experiments” from natural science to poetry. In their editorial, Goran Dahlberg and Julia Lavanis point out that the term “essay” itself comes from a Latin verb meaning experiment. Expeririso this is a question full of experiments related to experiments.
Fortunately, it’s a contrarian
Sanna Beynov, who works as a psychologist, explores the joys and pains of ambivalence towards her profession. She focuses on the promise of increased happiness found in self-help literature. In a recent book by Siri Helle and Bjorn Hedenshaw, she finds that an “unholy alliance between scientific claims and marketing language” leads to complacent professional clichés. But she also struggles to question her own negative reactions to these clichés. Who doesn’t want to be happy?
Happiness is associated with freedom and play, but psychological research that offers behavioristic solutions and trivial advice threatens that, Beynov writes. But the freedom to do as one pleases is itself determined by predictable psychological mechanisms.
Beynov explores the concept of “reactance,” or the pleasure found in things. do not have I’m doing what I’m told. “Humans have many loyalties,” she writes. “We want to submit, but we also want to be free. We want to leave and we want to be captured.” In Beynov’s hands, the essay becomes a place to play with, and perhaps temper, the urge to do something else entirely.
social experiment
Modernism promised a bright future. But the adventure soon became routine, writes Karl Palmos. The early Crystal Palace experiments have since been reflected in shopping malls and business districts. The “fucking experiments” currently being waged by technological oligarchy and authoritarian governments utilize neuroliberal approaches to malleable human behavior. Can the gains from social experiments be recovered for welfare and basic income needs?
Yes, the conspiracies we have unfolding are familiar, and we will continue to be blindsided as we watch empires fall and geopolitical maps redrawn. Ultimately, however, the story is divorced from experimentalism as an idea and practice. Even in a world in decline, it is possible to choose adventure over everyday life, follow your free will, and forge a path to the future, wherever it may lead.
Read Eurozine’s English translation article.
art of science
“In every experiment there is a tension between freedom and method, openness and control,” commented Julia Lavanis in conversation with experimental physicist Lars Helberg, economic historian Anne Ige, and artist and researcher Michele Masucci.
Helberg backs this up by reflecting on how the 24/7 laboratory workshops in his high school in the 1970s played a formative role in his own development. Helberg, who teaches at Chalmers University of Technology, a research university in Gothenburg, has more than 100 engineering physics students, too many to have at his disposal. Some U.S. universities have much lower student-teacher ratios and correspondingly more freedom.
While physics wants to achieve certainty through experimentation, Ige argues that uncertainty is more important in the production and research of art. According to Masucci, artists are the first and last experimenters because humans organically create playful experiments and in the process raise questions about values that cannot be answered empirically. But artists and physicists need each other. When a black hole was first photographed in 2019, artists had to translate light invisible to humans into visible colors. The result resembled an abstract painting, Masucci said.
erotic parameters
Karin Franzen says that while modern dating has been streamlined through reality TV and dating apps, the core dilemma of love – being able to surrender to passion while still maintaining self-determination – transcends history.
Interesting parallels emerge between modern dating and its representation in European literature over the past millennium. Franzen is particularly interested in reality shows such as Love Is Blind and Love at First Sight, arguing that the ritualized structure of the shows, with trials, conflicts, and rituals surrounding decisive moments, reinforces the impression of a modern morality play in which popular values are reflected and reproduced.
Franzen notes a second paradox in modern dating culture. In other words, we want our relationships to be compatible with personal autonomy and freedom of choice, but we also tend to leave partner selection in the hands of experts, whether it’s Tinder’s algorithm or a dating show’s psychologist. “Love may be free in a democratic society,” she writes, “but participants on dating shows must abide by the terms of the experiment.”
Similar experiments can be seen in the works of Marguerite de Navarra. heptamelona series of stories published in 1558, about the tribulations of love, often told by a variety of characters. What’s unique about this book is that every story is followed by a discussion between the characters, and the characters offer different interpretations of the lesson, just like viewers of modern dating shows.
ongoing experiment
Lina Ekdahl’s poem “Title: Experiment” explores the prerequisites of both writing and life. It starts with, “Can I write about the experiment?” / What are the conditions? / What do I have? / theme. /Title. / coffee. / time. ‘ declares the poem to be ‘a kind of metatext’ that satisfies no one. Ekdahl explores writing style with reference to books by Marguerite Duras. writeit’s not possible. “I have to say it can’t be done. / And yet we write.”
Ekdahl also considers the inability to eat, sleep, and actually live. “Insomnia, an experiment I conduct every night. I’m not alone; it’s an experiment on a larger and larger scale.” While dealing with these difficulties, the poet met a plumber who taught him the dangers of not eating. He also says the cliché: “Life itself is an experiment!” The poem’s final experiment confronts the impossibility of living. “To live.” / I can’t. /No one can. / I don’t think I can say that. You can’t do that. / Still, we are alive. ”
Review by Joel Duncan
Source: Eurozine – www.eurozine.com
