Puppet Master 2009

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27 Oct. 2009 The Puppet Theater 1

The Puppet Theater

The Grace of the Machineand

The Mechanics of Grace
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Kleist

Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist, 1777-

Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist, 1777-1811

ber das Marionettentheater,Berliner Abendbltter(1810).

Considered one of the best examples of theessay as a short prose form.


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Romanticism?

Carl Spitzweg, Der Bcherwurm (the bookworm), c. 1850


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Act 1. The Grace of the Machine

"He assured me that the pantomime

of these puppets gave him muchpleasure, and suggested in nouncertain terms that any dancer whowished to improve his art mightlearn all sorts of things from them."-- Kleist

If ...... a mechanical puppet dances moregracefully than a human body.Then is consciousness (intelligence, self-awareness) a prerequisite forphysical grace? Or is it an obstaclethat humans can never overcome;only machines and gods can achievethis kind of perfection?
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What is a puppet?

pets.com sock puppet

A small figure, human or animal, with jointed

limbs, moved by means of strings or wires; esp.oneof the figures in a puppet-show; a marionette OED


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What is a marionette?

Marionette (OED).Etymology: From middle Frenchmarionnette or maryonete, denoting atype of dance (1517) or a type of musicalinstrument (1479). Derived from OldFrench mariole + ette.

Mariole denotes the Virgin Mary or animage of her (13th, 14th c.)

English definition in OED. 1a. A puppetwith jointed limbs, usually operated bystrings. Established by the 17th century.


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Grace

Hail Mary, full ofgrace.The Lord is with thee.Blessed art thou amongst women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.Holy Mary, Mother of God,pray for us sinners,now and at the hour of our death.Amen.

_____________________

Theological or legal meaning:

A voluntary gift leads to:1. the notion of grace as a gift. For example, itis a quality that the athlete is born with, not aproduct of reason, study, or training.

2. "Grace is beauty in motion" and it can "onlybe given to its subject by accident" (FriedrichSchiller)
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Centers of Gravity

Each movement, he said, had its center ofgravity; it would suffice to control that center, onthe inside of the figure; the limbs, which arereally nothing but pendulums, follow ofthemselves, in a mechanical way, withoutfurther aid.-- Kleist
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The Mechanics of Grace: Stanford Swings

"Balance, agility and ease but each in ahigher degree, and especially a more

natural coordination of the center ofgravity."
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Mechanics

I replied that I had always thought this activity something quite mindless,rather like turning the crank on a hand organ."By no means," he answered. "On the contrary, the relation of his fingermovements to the movements of the puppets attached to them is somethingquite precise, rather like the relation of numbers to their logarithms orasymptotes to their hyperbola.

But he believed that even this last fraction of mind, towhich he had just now referred, could indeed be removedfrom the marionettes, their dance transposed wholly intothe realm of mechanical forces, and, just as I hadimagined, produced by means of a crank.



Be the Ball

Ty Webb: Just be the ball, bethe ball, be the ball. You're notbeing the ball Danny.

Danny Noonan: It's hardwhen you're talking like that.
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Act 2. The Fall from Grace

h h ll



The Thorn Puller



The Fall from Grace

3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree wasgood for food, and that it was pleasant to theeyes, and a tree to be desired to make onewise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,

and gave also unto her husband with her; and hedid eat.3:7And the eyes of them both wereopened, and they knew that they werenaked; and they sewed fig leaves together, andmade themselves aprons. -- The Book ofGenesis.



Act 3. In the Flow

Eye to eye, as though hecould read my very soul, hestood with his paw poised

for the strike, and if mythrusts were not in earnesthe simply did not move."

B l Th Fl
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Bearly There: Flow

Mihly Cskszentmihlyi (1934-)

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience(1990)

Clear goals

Concentrating and focusing

Aloss of the feeling of self-consciousness,the merging of action and awareness.

Distorted sense of time

"What do you mean by flow?

"Being completely involved in anactivity for its own sake. The egofalls away. Time flies. Every action,movement, and thought followsinevitably from the previous one, like

playing jazz.Your whole being isinvolved, and you're using yourskills to the utmost.

Wired4.09: "Go With The Flow"
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All your attention is focused either on the skills or routinebeing performed or on the input from your senses relevant tothe sport.

You are fully focused of the activities being performed, andare:

not aware of your own awareness,consciousness of self or egonot evaluating the quality of execution ofskills during performancenot concerned with distractions such as

results, judges, audiences or other peoplesexpectationsnot making any conscious decisions in yourmind or reasoning with words - you aretrusting your body to follow its training

You are in complete control of actions and reactions

You feel almost in an altered state of consciousness: achievingflow is exhilarating, and gives a powerful feeling ofcompetence.



Jumpman

T l l A P t G d?
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Teleology: A Puppet or a God?

"We see how, in the organic world, asreflection grows darker and weaker, graceemerges ever more radiant and supreme.

grace, having likewise traversed theinfinite, return to us once more, andso appear most purely in that bodilyform that has either no consciousnessat all or an infinite one, which is tosay, either in the puppet or a god."

- Kleist


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The Singularity
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Souls

-

are overrated

.

P f i th M hi


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27 Oct 2009 The P ppet Theate 22

Performing the Machine

Kraftwerk, "The Robots" promo forMan Machine (1977)
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Puppet Master 2009