to: ellipsis
from: William Dragon
14 July 1996
subject: letter fourteen N
attachments: activities, artifacts and concepts
: without what?
: opera brick seven
Greetings Tom and Jonathan
This is the place for me to say something of
bodymind as jcj sometimes calls it, making a
single word cross the underlying split in modern
culture.
In the texts about the body, with letters twelve
and thirteen, he avoids splitting mind from body
by writing of both concrete and abstract aspects
at the same time, which comes easily to him. I've
heard him attribute this to being brought up in an
old culture, in Wales, where 'the renaissance
never happened' and 'pre-Cartesian thinking is in
the language'. Be that as it may, I like the
results.
I'm not sure if jcj sees the internet, virtual
reality and other such media as deepening or as
healing the split between mind and body. To
perceive and use these media as healing it could
be the most significant of changes at present.
I'm attaching three other texts that are more to
do with mind. 'Activities, artifacts and concepts'
is from an unpublished book of that title which he
wrote in the 1950s. It includes 'Automation: a new
basis for human activity', which is attached to
letter two. Some other parts of it, which go with
this letter, are more to do with people than with
work or with machines.
'Without what?' is about software, as perceived by
jcj in 1974. It is part of Dear architects, a book
that was published only to the sixteen teachers
and students of architecture to whom it is
addressed, and to some of their colleagues.
'Opera brick seven', written in 1993, begins with
thoughts about opera and later begins to become
one. It has never been published but it resembles
the texts in jcj's forthcoming book, Notes and
plays. In this piece jcj connects things intimate
with things public, a connection which is the
essence of art but which the art of machines has
excluded.
Good wishes
William Dragon