The LAB companion to TINE TIMES: an Unofficial Limited Fork Extension where you can get the science of "LIMITED FORK SCIENCE." Play with the Limited Fork right here, and increase the possible outcomes of creating. THIS IS A POAM CREATION STATION (a "poam" is a product of an act of making) LIMITED FORK POAM-MAKING ACTIVITIES ARE HERE. Fun with extended definitions of writing systems
In the flash of recognition when I became aware of the connection as it was writing itself into my brain, the flash itself was an incredible poam: elements in the event tine sidebar came together to form something possible to form —of it couldn't have formed— yet something I hadn't predicted, so one of the concealed elements was the element of surprise.
—If there were no writing systems, I'd just as well perish— —And, consider this: if hieroglyphs could move —and I'll try to get some hieroglyph fonts— the outcome might resemble some of the text choreography in some of my video poams; I'll play around with this and post the outcomes of writing video poams with hieroglyphs—
and maybe
(Keep these two video poams in mind when you explore the Fold Tine Activity in a previous post; the text folds and unfolds, then refolds differently, having behaved in a manner that allowed change or having interacted with something that encouraged change.)
Anyway, under "memory fold" in the event tine sidebar is a story about an event related to Moss Fold Road; yes; a map to this road, and the invitation to stay on the road, to keep going; well, the interface is with mortality, with a limit, the death of Jack Hargreaves, who had cancer folded into his brain and into his lungs. I am now oh-so-superficially connected to Jack and the story, and that isn't where I'd like to stay on this emerging map, so I will pursue more of the story, and maybe I'll increase the dimensions of the poam by reducing the "oh-so-superficial" status to only a "so-superficial" status in this mapping of compelling exterior and interior surfaces.
Is it a weakness of imagination that I didn't imagine this, that it was excluded by the parameters of what I could construct as possible until I added the "memory fold" event tine when I added it?
The poam as it emerges will inhabit this playspace in one form or another, more likely multiple forms as this post should be considered one of them.
UPDATE: I just pursured the story and left a comment at the site. Click to read.
I hope you don't mind a bit of kindergarten. Really. Because in attempting this, I doubt we'll get any further than trying to fold a piece of paper. Folding a piece of paper is such a broad action, that without more restriction, more limiting factors; without narrower parameters, you may be stuck in this folding of a piece of paper for a while, even though there may be a limit to the physical manipulation, so understand this risk before you get involved. Imagination can continue to fold the piece of paper, however; an actual limit of physicality is not a limit on what imagination can attempt and accomplish. Rules vary according to circumstance. But do start with a piece of paper that has measurable physicality. You can stop folding he piece of paper at any time, of course, and whenever you do stop, you will have arrived at at least one limit.
Limited Fork Science encourages documentation, and openness of form, for form will be shaped by the nature of the investigation itself. The goal, as LFS would configure the goal, isn't to make art (including creative writing), but art is not ruled out as an outcome of the folding; the outcome may fulfill multiple purposes. Perhaps an investigation of folding will lead you to make objects, various digital iterations derived from something that is realized at some location in the folding (or the eventual unfolding which will occur later in another posted writing). Maybe a lovely equation where the script is very thick, to the point that the pattern of the symbols can dominate and in 3D printers become objects that can fit together as puzzles, or perhaps the 3D modeling of this (and the bifurcations of this; the ability to fold is powerful; consider the consequences of that opposable, the way the thumb and fold to touch the other fingers; the way those fingers could fold to meet the thumb). For Hiroshi Sugimoto, the outcomes of equations are three dimensional scultures whose volume includes his understanding of what is folded into the invisible mathematical line and the pencil line or chalk line that writes the equation having, on our human scale, only length (meaningfully; the depth can't be usefully perceived by us until we shift consideration to a smaller scale which becomes enlarged and meanfully through focus and magnification). Perhaps a system of text-based units that fold/unfold in multiple ways, some of which depend upon the shifting of scales. Perhaps something motorized at least some of the time. Alphabet free to fold into and out of various alphabet forms mechanically, digitally, or just a flat diagram in which such interaction is imagined without needing to exist with more dimensionality. Perhaps something about what happens as the paper is folded gives you ideas about how dimensionality is acquired. Maybe the writing of a poem in which folding exerts significant influence beyond/in addition to the word "fold" having presence (various active instances of folding are part of this post). I say this at the outset mostly to point out how the destination can bifurcate into many tines of the "fold" fork (bufurcate yet still be attached), any particular poam not arbitrary in the context of the investigation that can to help to explain thr nature of the poam that results. I say this on the fly, within the limits of what I can imagine, the presence of a bird sound that made shift my eyes, just now (a slightly earlier now than this "now" —or the typed "now" that preced it can rference; "now" is not necessarily synchronized; time sort of folds as it moves, interacts with various siutations and perceptions); anyway, I shifted my eyes from the computer screen in time to see a bird fold its wing as landed on a neighbor's new fence. A fence whose slants could be reworked into a folding structure like some window blinds and treatments. A wing whose folding also hooked up with some of the folding roofs in the architecture of Santiago Calatrava. I do know about that proteins fold, but not the specifics of how proteins fold, by the way, but I wasn't going to bring that up until part 2 or 3 of the fold inforkigation, but I figured that if I got the mention of the folding of proteins down on this virtual paper, then the "folding of proteins" would fold with the host paper. The investigation itself can provide the contexts and reasons for focus so that appropriate rules of exclusion can direct the forming poam in particlar ways.
There is a reason for the apparent unrestrictedness ofwhat's been said, thoug there has been an actrive limiting factor to exclude what isn't about fold, and to include a model of fold's range on multiple scales.
As fold is investigated, and ideas and understanding begin to limit what fold will be for you in this session of interacting with fold, necessitiies of form will also emerge. If the form that seems best for the emerging and evolving idea of what you make is a form that you cannt execute in a way that gives it physicality, then the map of what you can't make, the diagram of what you can't make, the song of what you can't make, the _____________of what you can't make, with documentation of the entire investigation somehow folded into what is made. It's certainly possible that the documentation itself becomes the poam. The goal is to understand folding better. If the poam that results is just the poam of enhanced or extended understanding, that's fine. Again; the purpose isn't to make a particular thing, for forcing agenda on investigation does help deliver outcomes of that agenda —and investigating "fold" is an agenda; the outcomes will be related to fold. Fold is a limiting factor requiring that that what it contains have a relationship with fold that can be perceived as a relationship for reasons that are being documented. Well; enough of this. I just needed to set up some really bare walls as minimal paramenters. So now that the playpen is bounded, very soon, this directive will be only the playing itself. It just might turn out that what unfolds in this investigation of folding is that this blog won't contain any other activity. A persistent kindergarten state. We'll play in this playspace with only folding, and, figuratively, the playspace may get folded into this first Forking and just stay there, because in some persistent fold situations, the fold is a rut —OOPS! I didn't mean to disclose that so early in the writing, because you don't have to go to rut at all, that opens up (please don't think of birth of fissure, locations of physical stress). This is an unfolded springboard into an investigation of folding (paper). I cannot account for all of the situations active in your session of folding. Some of the springboard tactics can lead you to the forming of parameters that refine the investigation. Feel free to conduct other investigations in which the values of the parameters are reset. But that's part of the first grade folding curriculum, so there should be no writing about that right now. Fold and fold and fold paper.
But let's go ahead and skip some more grades for a moment; just to think about folding is folding multiple connections into multiple locations in the brain —"writing" them in (I'm picturing the writing of the Ten Commandment tablets in DeMille's film). "Fold" and its bifurcations are not written into only one brain spot. Though the paper folding session that follows is being set up as a series of physical manipulations in 3D space, the flat version —think of 2D maps of 3D spaces— can reveal more of the pattern of the folding while concealing the 3D shape. The brain into which idea is folded, is folded itself. The path of "fold" in the brain is more of a forking or bifurcating pattern because of the multiple connections fired up by "fold" in the mind. "Fold" is a system rather than a single thing. Focus can (apparently) reduce the number of parts of the system that are being considered in a particular situation; branches of fold are weighted with a different relevance according to the situation. Fold can get bulk out of the way, freeing up space (fold as compression). As this kindergarten session progresses, some branches will bear more weight than others. Some connection paths in my brain burn brighter for me because there are more elements connected, and their combined luminosity is more intense, and folded into how I form meaning in my years of being trained to prefer well-lit locales over dangerous poorly-lit situations where I may be more vulnerable to attack, though I would argue that I have been attacked by the light; it draws me to it, and without fear, I venture close to the bright patterns of the mapping of fold in my brain, and I am burned.
Now Playing: Folding 101: Kindgerten Mental Burn Unit.
Depending on what you (try to) fold, this investigation could lead you to different considerations of persistence. But say that the material to be used in the folding is paper, some form of paper. The thickness may be an issue. If so, document (in some way) what you experience concerning the thickness of the paper and your efforts to fold it. Is the paper wet or dry? Is it burning? Is fire being allowed to fold the paper? Would it be cheating if the paper has been folded into a recipe for papier mache? Just what is the condition of the paper? Is there any evidence of previous folding? What role did such evidence play in the paper's selection for this session of folding? Do you think that crumpling the paper should be considered a form of folding? why or why not? Fold the paper at least once. Feel free to use varying amouunts of pressure as you fold the paper. Feel free to use devices to help you fold the paper.
Are you trying to fold the paper into a particular structure? A particularity present from the outset of this session of folding? or does the possibility of a definite structure emerge during the session? How can you account for the emergence or non-emergence of the possibility of a definite structure?
Perhaps you think of Sadako's paper cranes. You certainly don't have to think of them.
Fold until you reach some limit. Please document (in some form) as much as you can (until you reach some limit of documenting) what you know about the limit that are reached
Are these your limits or the paper's limits? How do you know?
Was the paper clean at the start of session? What is the paper's condition now that limits have been reached?
What is happening in the locations of the folds? Has the folding also made additional corners? Is there somehow more surface to explore? Is there one or more interiors? Are there means to access these interiors without unfolding?
Where was the paper as it was being folded? Where are you relative to the location of the paper as it is being folded while ideas about what is occuring are being folded and refolded into you?
Is the first fold a dominant fold in some way? Is the first fold a determining fold in some way?
Now that the paper has been folded, are there some usages for the paper that have been altered or eliminated?
What are the attributes of the paper that helped determine —or limit— how it could be folded?
If the paper wasn't blank, what has changed, if anything, concerning how the content may still be accessed?
Perhaps deliberately select paper with text content or some other content, different areas of texture, different areas of color, and document what happens to the content at various stages of the folding.
What is happening to the meaning of the content as its physical position is shifted during the folding?
Have you folded the paper in some way that enhances flexibility? That restricts flexibility? A crude simple quasi-model of a corset? (I may be stretching the writing here, but the paper may lack elasticity unless the folds contain enable some stretch). If you can find it, watch the movie.
Are you folding a single unit of paper or multiple units simultaneously? What happens to ideas of top and bottom as the paper is folded?
Are there additional dimensions even though the total package of the folded unit of paper may seem able to fit into a smaller space? How is time being folded in to the structure taking shape?
Does the documention capture the essences of your understanding about what is occurring in the folding (session)? What are the methods and locations of capture being used to document? If it's being documented only or also in your head, then it's fine to include "electrical" as one of the forms.
I will be folding a scented perfume sample that was packaged with an invoice. I will try to fold a love letter with my toes, with my teeth. I will fold a map. I hope that I fold a map as well as Dave folds a map in Highland Park; a folding so accomplished, there's a video documenting the folding.
I will fold graph paper I will fold papery disposable diapers I will travel better than ever, hotel staff will marvel as I unpack and unfold my clothes for a fee in the lobby, enough to upgrade to preidential and penthouse accommodations, a wad of bills too thick to fold well, too thick to fit into any standard trifold wallet. I owe my expertise for having to learn to fold from Benny
I will make, rather I made, "Frieze Framed by Friezes" a video quilt poam in which forms of folding are active in what's captured in the still and moving images of the actual acts of demolition (as it to unfold or remove the evidence that supoorts what resides best now in memories of the Frieze Building, a rewriting of evidence on what is now the site of new construction that will house, among other units, the school of information).
So now what? Maybe something tidy has come out of the folding; perhaps you have an affinity for compacting, perhaps you coukd leave this session satisfied if you left it right now, perhaps you've wasted a perfectly good piece of paper, maybe from now on, your hand-made grocery lists will be pyramids, you'll try to tuck miniature tetrahedrons into pockets or purses.
But this is far from done. I must confess that I have much to figure out about folding. I seldom get beyond the folding of paper. I'm not even sure that I am close to the limits of folding paper unless I establish some limts, some rule(s) of exclusion and inclusion so that in thinking about the conditions of the paper at the outset of the session, I won't, through a series of connections, ultimately arrive at the beginning of the universe, not that that isn't where I really want to go, because being there suggests a partnership with proof. Imagine: the folding, unfolding, refolding of the universe as a mesh of Limited Fork tines!
Has the folding been positive folding or negative folding? Each time smaller? Or were some folds reversed? Is unfolding a fold allowed as an instance of continuing to fold in the session?
What is the present situation of surface? Is folding weakiening some areas, strengthening some areas of the paper? Do the folds help locate preferences for formation of cracks?
Could the folded structure that has emerge be considered regular? Or would "irregular" seem to access more of what dominates what is emerging as important in this session?
