Sunday, December 4, 2011

African Villages Designed as Fractal (Concept-city/Essentialism)

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals.html

Here is a fascinating TED talk about the design of some African villages in complex, self-similar mathematical and geometrical patterns called fractals which are the basis of nature's organization.

There are many, many important things to draw from this talk, but I found myself questioning de Certeau's notion that the 'city dweller' is someone 'down there' who actively participates in the fabrication of a city/text they themselves are not literate or aware of. Though this may be true in a place like New York city, Ron Eglash's research in Africa shows that as many of the townspeople knew (some did not know) how and why their villages were designed in fractal patterns. Eglash quotes a figure in the village who responded to the image of a mathematical set by saying 'Yes, the rectangle within the rectangle, we know this.' Furthermore his research repeatedly showed villages whose design matched up to the "pathological curves" mathematicians had been grappling with since before Benoit Mandelbrot pointed to the legitimacy of the fractal in the 70's via computer programming to overcome cultural and intellectual imperialism of the European mathematicians Eglash names.

Eglash states that when the geometric patterns of the fractal are repeated indefinitely, "you get human lungs, you get acacia trees, you get beautiful forms."

The timing of de Certeau's Walking in the City and Mandelbrot's fractal is rather synchronous as the 're/discovery' of fractals in math is chronologically placed alongside De Certeau's theorizing about the panoptic view from above NYC--and his discussion of the Concept-city as a text and its development/decay and growth.

(side note: saw art of computer circuit boards flipped and hung on the wall (painted silver) with red twig tied to it where the twig fit between the various elements soldered to the circuit board--it looked like a city)

By seeing NYC as a natural fractal designing and reinventing itself perpetually (like computer technology) it becomes very interesting to include Eglash's recent contributions regarding the villages in Africa.


This is a situation which exudes from this synthesis shows how nature overcomes Spivak's notion of intellectual imperialism--
1. de Certeau's belief that throughout time the city dweller has been illiterate to their contribution to the Concept-city // African villagers knowing the design as a part of nature
(9:30-11:00 on straw fences)

2. de Certeau's reference to only Rome and NYC in his discourse // existence of Great Zimbabwe as great trading center chronologically placed between Rome/NYC


3. Eglashs' discussion of the intellectual imperialists who disregarded the fractal pattern until Mandelbrot proved its importance--and the extension of this disregard into the modern day with regards to 'the AFRICAN EXCEPTION' found among Euro historians, mathematicians and scientists who refuse to credit African communities with ANYTHING of historic/cultural/scientific advancement, who justify this disregard with an essentialist view of the 'third world' culture as backward.


The African village designed in Fractal pattern is important because the fractal pattern is the way nature self-organizes (organizes itself) this holds true in many mappings in natural science (text/data set) and for a European intellectual to claim the fractal issomething outside of African understanding shows the imbecility of intellectual imperialism.


This fractal shaped 'break through' shows Africans as humans and human (regardless of Euro-colonial-centrism) beings with spiritual beliefs. Eglash says of speaking to a priest, "it turns out that its a pseudo-random number generators they are using deterministic chaos...it's a self generating diversity...you can implement this in hardware." (listen to geomancy bits 12:30-14:23). This shows the African builders of villages realized their communities place in nature's organizational pattern and chose to design its villages based on natural phenomenon. Furthermore it shows these discoveries travelled through Europe during the middle ages.

To synthesize, the African villages are Concept-cities built by seeing oneself and the city (environment) one lives in as a part of the same self organizing patterns as nature. This refutes African Exceptionalism in the tangible shape and structure of the buildings which have withstood the test of time.

This is a great step towards breaking down essentialist/exceptionist barriers in re/presentation of human beings--it rivals the presence of Great Zimbabwe in relationship to the Euro intellectual's refusal to associate the ruins with an African community. These are both examples of African exceptionism as its probably that had similar ruins been found on any other continent, the indigenous population would have been recognized as the builders of the ruins.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/10chapter1.shtml
((see "African origins denied"))

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