(B7) Research Brief: Post Crit Research and Ideas

Stamps:

Taking the novelty of a traditional stamp and applying to how we use stamps now 

Iceland Post has announced that it will cease issuing stamps after 2020. The postal service plans to continue to sell its stamps in stock to customers and may reprint older stamps if necessary to replenish its stock.
- https://www.linns.com/news/world-stamps-postal-history/a-new-dead-country-iceland-to-stop-issuing-stamps
- https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/iceland-post-says-issuing-stamps-is-too-costly

Digital tracking codes, what do they show? 
- At the moment the QR shows (amongst other things) the parcel weight, service used, account details of the sender and address details of both sender and addressee.
Can't find much more information than this on the matter.

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Sudokus:

Grid Poems:

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/brian-isett-john-soat-grid-poems-graphic-design-051017

Grid Poems is a book of three-by-three arrangements of lines which allow for two different readings: top-to-bottom and left-to-right, part haiku, part sudoku. A third reading is enabled through the inclusion of illustrations which follow the book’s uniform grid in some way – the negative space created between the gutter of each text box became the line weight for each illustration, and the length of every box, line, circle, wave, or particle was constrained to the exact grid the poetry rests on.

- Fascinating way of approaching design
- Could think about Sudoku from a visual perspective rather than a performative one. 
- How could I used sudoku's to inform a visual, but then what would the content be? Would it be about sudoku? 
- The layout assists in the multiple ways of reading, does seem like an interesting way to present information (reminds me of concrete poetry work).

Maths within a Sudoku (could use of visuals): 

• A standard Sudoku contains 81 cells, in a 9×9 grid, and has 9 boxes, each box being the intersection of the first, middle, or last 3 rows, and the first, middle, or last 3 columns. Each cell may contain a number from one to nine, and each number can only occur once in each row, column, and box.
• The main results are that for the classical Sudoku the number of filled grids is 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 (6.67×10²¹), which reduces to 5,472,730,538 essentially different groups under the validity preserving transformations. 
• There are 26 types of symmetry.
• A puzzle with a unique solution must have at least 17 clues.

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Superstitions:

'excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural.'

'a widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences, especially as leading to good or bad luck, or a practice based on such a belief.'

'A superstition is a belief or practice typically resulting from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or causality, a belief in fate or magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown'

It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy, and certain spiritual beings, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific (apparently) unrelated prior events.

The earliest known use as an English noun is found in Friar Daw's Reply

The earliest known use as a noun is found in Plautus, Ennius and later by Pliny, with the meaning of art of divination.

Origin in the behaviourist perspective: In 1948, behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner published an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, in which he described his pigeons exhibiting what appeared to be superstitious behaviour. One pigeon was making turns in its cage, another would swing its head in a pendulum motion, while others also displayed a variety of other behaviours. Because these behaviors were all done ritualistically in an attempt to receive food from a dispenser, even though the dispenser had already been programmed to release food at set time intervals regardless of the pigeons' actions, Skinner believed that the pigeons were trying to influence their feeding schedule by performing these actions. He then extended this as a proposition regarding the nature of superstitious behavior in humans.

Types of superstitions and where they came from:

"It's bad luck to open an umbrella indoors."

In "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things" (Harper, 1989), the scientist and author Charles Panati wrote: "In eighteenth-century London, when metal-spoked waterproof umbrellas began to become a common rainy-day sight, their stiff, clumsy spring mechanism made them veritable hazards to open indoors. A rigidly spoked umbrella, opening suddenly in a small room, could seriously injure an adult or a child, or shatter a frangible object. Even a minor accident could provoke unpleasant words or a minor quarrel, themselves strokes of bad luck in a family or among friends. Thus, the superstition arose as a deterrent to opening an umbrella indoors."

Ancient Egyptians believed umbrellas were royal, and that their shade was sacred. Opening one indoors was considered an insult to the God of the Sun.

"It's bad luck to walk under a leaning ladder."

This superstition really does originate 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt. A ladder leaning against a wall forms a triangle, and Egyptians regarded this shape as sacred (as exhibited, for example, by their pyramids). To them, triangles represented the trinity of the gods, and to pass through a triangle was to desecrate them.

"A broken mirror gives you seven years of bad luck."

In ancient Greece, it was common for people to consult "mirror seers," who told their fortunes by analyzing their reflections. As the historian Milton Goldsmith explained in his book "Signs, Omens and Superstitions" (1918), "divination was performed by means of water and a looking glass. This was called catoptromancy. The mirror was dipped into the water and a sick person was asked to look into the glass. If his image appeared distorted, he was likely to die; if clear, he would live."

Ancient Romans believed that mirrors contained fragments of our souls — so breaking a mirror signified a break in someone's health and well-being. they also believed that souls regenerated every seven years, the amount of time the mirror-breaker would be unlucky before they emerged new and whole again.

"Knock on wood to prevent disappointment."

"Some attribute it to the ancient religious rite of touching a crucifix when taking an oath," Goldsmith wrote. Alternatively, "among the ignorant peasants of Europe it may have had its beginning in the habit of knocking loudly to keep out evil spirits."

Knocking on wood is a tradition that stems from ancient pagan cultures' belief that spirits and gods resided in trees. Knocking on tree trunks was therefore an attempt to rouse the gods and call upon them for protection and good luck.

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Pigeons and Doves:

Pigeons and Doves are basically the same thing.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMk_HPwYDqM

Pigeons and doves belong to the same family of birds (Columbidae), which consists of more than 300 species of birds. They share similar features like thick and round bodies, short necks and thin peaks, but doves are generally of a smaller stature while pigeons are often larger and stubbier.