Wednesday, December 31, 2008

370. The Prism and the Mirror Box (Stokastika Photography Shoot)



It's funny how a bunch of little ideas just lay around unfinished, undone, all over the place. I just have one long trail of unfinished ideas, to which I am slowly accumulating, organizing, and cleaning up. Such was the case when I attempted to transport a 'mirror box' and 'prism' to the car upon return to Santa Barbara in December 31, 2008. I picked up the mirror box, remembering how I made it during the time I was visiting Tariel, and then I realized I performed a photoshoot with the mirror box, but never finished it! I never placed it on line! And so it goes.

The mirror box and prism are fundamental metaphors in perception of a common system--for example stakeholder perceptions of a common set of resources, or a common landscape, a common environment. The mirror box represents multiple different perceptions of the same system, but the prism not only reflects, but has transluscence. Transparency. The goal is to find common grounds--extract the common stuff that represents all of our core needs for existence.

This is what it says on my Stokastika Portfolio:
"I came back to Santa Barbara the day before New Years, only to realize I needed to move the mirror box and the prism to the car. I made the mirror box and purchased the prism in downtown Santa Barbara (back in May of 2008). I was inspired that my friend Tariel had a prism, so I was determined to have my own!"

2 comments:

Victoria "Stokastika" said...

Little did I know I spent all morning making a photography shoot Zen Card self portfolio for Michel Gondry! Talk about a deep-down rabbithole!

Victoria "Stokastika" said...

Extending the metaphor from mirror boxes to prisms to kaleidascopes and flippin' plasma lamps: an excerpt from David Sloan Wilson (Darwin in Our Daily Lives)

"The Ivory Tower would be more aptly named the Ivory Archipelago. It consists of hundreds of isolated subjects, each divided into smaller subjects in an almost infinite progression. People are examined less with a microscope than with a kaleidoscope—psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, history, art, literature, philosophy, gender studies, ethnic studies. Each perspective has its own history and special assumptions. One person’s heresy is another’s
commonplace.

Well, amen. I am preaching the choir. I am not the only one who made the epiphany. Now I will have to look more specifically how kaleidosopes look like!