Voici une adaptation musicale d'un poème de mon professeur de musique et ami Nguyen Van Quy:
Tuesday, May 24 2016
Compo : La Belle Sérénade
By Matthieu on Tuesday, May 24 2016, 06:38
Tuesday, May 24 2016
By Matthieu on Tuesday, May 24 2016, 06:38
Voici une adaptation musicale d'un poème de mon professeur de musique et ami Nguyen Van Quy:
Monday, May 16 2016
By Matthieu on Monday, May 16 2016, 10:40
A picture can translate a music, a poem... and why not a creed?
Here is what the Christian credo could look like:
Friday, April 29 2016
By Matthieu on Friday, April 29 2016, 17:13
Small books to embody intangible creations, three so far. The content can be replaced as it updates.
Friday, April 8 2016
By Matthieu on Friday, April 8 2016, 13:08
On est souvent un peu perplexe devant un ordinateur.. qui y est le maître et qui est l’élève ?
Thursday, March 31 2016
By Matthieu on Thursday, March 31 2016, 09:57
I've been hearing a lot about "Y Generation" and "Z Gen" lately. When I looked into the topic, it reminded me of an old idea : showing both time and age on a diagram, in order to quickly visualize the age of a person (or generation) at each point of time. The aim was to clarify statements like "I was too young for that back then!".
Historical events are shown in vertical, spanning through the age of affected populations. Events shaping a generation are typically occurring in their 20 years old.
I'm now complementing (crowding?) the diagram with the generations' labels, and few more events. In the XLS sheet I'm compiling researches depicting a profile of each generation.
Sunday, March 27 2016
By Matthieu on Sunday, March 27 2016, 17:12
Here is another working document, compiling Bible quotes by topics. The document also contains a Bible summary chapter by chapter. (so far 886 out of 1239 chapters) I don't guaranty the summary's fidelity, but it can come in handy to give a first overview!
Friday, March 25 2016
By Matthieu on Friday, March 25 2016, 10:39
En référence à la BD de Peeters et Schuiten (Souvenir de l’éternel présent). Hier, j'ai évoqué avec mon prof de théâtre que j'aimais reprendre des souvenirs d'improvisations ratées pour en imaginer de meilleures, et pourquoi pas, réviser mes souvenirs, comme un 1984 personnel ?
Monday, March 14 2016
By Matthieu on Monday, March 14 2016, 04:57
Exergy
19th century's physics explained that all closed systems must evolve into states of higher disorder. This disorder can also be also seen as a dilution of matter and energy: electric charges migrate toward lower potential, radioactive atoms disintegrate into more stable isotopes, high pressure expand into broader space, motion causes friction and converts kinetic energy into thermal energy, heat dilutes into matter of lower temperature... Physics quantifies this amount of disorder-dilution by entropy (from Greek τροπή, change) In any closed system, entropy has to increase. This 2nd law of thermodynamics dictates the time direction in which systems will evolve. This arrow of time cannot be reversed, unless no dilution occurred, or if more entropy is produced elsewhere.
Another way to look at entropy is to measure exergy. It is the opposite idea of entropy, short from of "extractable energy". When entropy is created, exergy is destroyed. Energy cannot be destroyed, it is conserved and converted into diverse forms. (In the case of nuclear reactions, following e=mc2, one considers energy and matter altogether as conserved.) Exergy is the extractable, or "useful", fraction of energy in a system, which can be extracted to produce work and drive motion. Electrical and mechanical energies are virtually 100% exergy, but heat, pressure, and chemical potential depend on how they differ from the surrounding. 1m3 of air at 1bar is useless on the Earth, because it is surrounded by the same pressure, but in outer-space is could produce work by dissipating into vacuum. After all exergy is taken from a system (battery, air tank, fuel, etc.), this system is at equilibrium with the environment and cannot dilute further. This can be compared to a spring of energy and matter which expands and dilutes.
It is to be noted that exergy can be destroyed without any "practical" use (e.g. an electric heater in the ocean..). The definition of exergy pertains to physics and is not anthropocentric, but rather independent from human cultural judgement. (I've discussed it in this 2008 article (in French) )
First conclusion: mass and energy dilution, causing exergy consumption, drives the motion of the universe. It fuels all physical reactions which build this movement into... more complex structures.
Emergence
Emergence is the name given to the phenomenon whereby the complex interactions of many simple elements generate new overall behaviours and entities. For example: life emerges from chemical systems. Life involves behaviours such as metabolism, reproduction, adaptation, which are all new compared to the underlying chemical systems, and could not have been predicted by the study of the chemical level. I've discussed this in a 2012 note, linking scientific fields in Russian doll emergence. I proposed the historical generation: Physical => Chemical => Biological => Psychological => Social. We see a rise of abstraction, and gradual irrelevance of "hard sciences" to study higher levels, replaced by humanities.
We can distinguish that the 2 necessary ingredients of emergence are the multiplicity of the entities (quantitative), and their specialization (qualitative). Hence emergence moves on through Zig-zag evolution, gaining complexity through both moves.
Emergence produces entities which survive when the underlying components disappear. For example, in a population of bacteria, if one individual mutates with a new better suited DNA trait, it will be inherited by its offspring and gradually become a trait of the whole population. It will survive in the population even after the death of the first new DNA bearer. An invention or an artistic style can still exists after the death of the civilization that made it.
A time goes by, more complex systems arise, which unify smaller components into a whole. Across history, civilizations consist of several societies, made of individuals. A person unifies organs, which unify countless cells, in turn unifying countless molecules, made of atoms.
Second conclusion: emergence federates the motion of small items into larger, fewer, harmonious, and novel entities. Like a pyramid building bottom-up, higher abstract levels gradually come into existence.
What our History-Universe might look like, from A to Z.
Both principles coexist:
...the destructive dispersing impulse of exergy,
...and the creative unifying rise of emergence.
Following the intuition of the Jesuit palaeontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, we could call Alpha the space-time origin of exergy (probably the so-called Big Bang) and Omega the final unified emerging state of the universe. (I do mean "state" and not "point". This ultimate unification will occur at a given future time, but would probably encompass the whole universe itself.) This model does not imply that a god kicked the alpha and attracts us to the omega... but why not? At the bottom line of a complete picture of the universe, science and spirituality must be in agreement.
PS: Gravity seems to be a bump on the road to entropy... since it tends to aggregate things together, and to sediment solids from liquids, seemingly creating order. In case the universe lacks of momentum, gravity would make it end up in a Big Crunch, all would go back to the Alpha square one! Hopefully we got enough exergy and time to reach Omega, and a godly handshake.
Addenda 2016-07-25: After reading (at last!) Hawking "Brief History of Time", i understand that gravity represents negative exergy, so that the total exergy of the universe is always zero. During the spacial dilution of energy and matter, doubled by space-time expansion, a large share of the original exergy is transferred into gravitational potential exergy. I find dubious that that entropy would be already maximal when the universe will start to contract back again. I'm pretty sure we'll still have few more billion years to surf on the exergy waves and build further the pyramid!
Once again i found that illustrating entropy merely as "disorder" is misleading and limited. A blank hard-drive has more thermodynamic order than the one containing Beethoven's symphonies. One shouldn't confuse the levels of the emergence pyramid. Biological or aesthetic order are far beyond thermodynamics. In that sense, the so-called Theory of Everything would be humbly relevant only to the bottom of the pyramid.
PPS: Vincent Mignerot summarizes (in French) ideas from François Roddier and Eric Chaisson, and pessimistically proposes that emergence is only a mean to creates structures able to destroy exergy even faster. Hmmm.. maybe yes. Then it's a race: I use you to grow up, you use me to blow up.
L'article a été mis sur Facebook ici.
Sunday, March 13 2016
By Matthieu on Sunday, March 13 2016, 12:47
This diagram I made in 2011 explores the relationships between 2 aspects of emergence: the multiplicity of entities, and their specialization.
This 2016 article from a French researcher Vincent MIGNEROT (English text) reminds about the "Technological singularity", a point of no return where we'll have brought computers up to a level where they'll independently continue their emergence and overtake us. (see I Robot, Matrix, etc.) This point however might be less threatening than the "Ecological singularity", a turning point of self-amplifying damages to the environment, which will herald human decline.
Saturday, March 12 2016
By Matthieu on Saturday, March 12 2016, 15:58
After the 2 scripts of last September, which were adapting the principles of Alfuni to specific situations, here is the latest version balancing a wide range of sounds, with minimalist graphical variation. Some will blame a lack of contrast, but i do like the regularity and harmony it gives!
(as usual, the table links to the TTF font, for those who'd like to write with it, or tweak it further!)
One key originality of this script is to propose a logical link between consonants and vowels. This idea first came in 2008 with the Phono-Braille.
It also proposes a selection of tones and punctuation, but the table is already big..
Sample in classical Chinese:
Link to the language creation forum: Alfuni
Friday, March 11 2016
By Matthieu on Friday, March 11 2016, 09:59
When i first heard the Nabucco overture, i got a strange feeling that Verdi tried to go Salsa! Here is what it could sound like:
Friday, February 5 2016
By Matthieu on Friday, February 5 2016, 04:40
Here is a working document i've prepared, showing major composers (133 so far), ranging from Renaissance until today, on a timeline with their lifetime and key compositions. That helps understanding how their style evolved along with their musical environment.
Click on the image below to open the Excel spreadsheet:
Monday, December 14 2015
By Matthieu on Monday, December 14 2015, 18:01
Version 1 of the tutorial of my Hylian language was sent to the Nintendo staff in Kyoto last October. The release CC license allows utilization of the language even partially and modified, including for commercial purpose. An inside contact is following up what they're doing with it.
By Matthieu on Monday, December 14 2015, 10:26 - Musique
Here is my latest creation, a music composed for the 24h-contest Noctaventure on the topic "Tempus fugit": time flies (when we're having fun). I classify it as an "etude" because of its construction constraint: a Re-Re clock pendulum ostinato, lasting throughout all the score.
The colours and melody evolve through various emotions, following the steps of human life: childhood, youth, then grief, panic on the face of death, confrontation against time, and finally the enlightenment of a teaching bringing peace.
The beautiful surprise and originality of this music is how an Indian melody naturally sprung out from the harmonic evolution, bringing a hypnotic climax to the topic: Krishna in his transcendent form as eternal Time-Spirit.
Here is the PDF music score.
Here is the mp3.
Monday, December 7 2015
By Matthieu on Monday, December 7 2015, 12:18
Through the creation of the Hylian language, I've drawn correspondences between space (cardinal points) and time (sun, moon, seasons, life). More recently with the attempt to encompass all fields of education into 4 groups, I've been suggested a comparison with the European 4 elements. That triggered an extension of the initial "cardinal cycle" into something connecting all the Eurasian continent!
The Chinese cardinal points introduces a 5th item, central to the 4 others. This suggests similar central points, with transcendent character compared to the 4 others.
One thing at least is not universal: the link between the cardinal points and the moments of the day (through the position of the sun), which is only valid in the northern hemisphere. North-South is reversed in the southern hemisphere!
We see that Chinese culture is built between cycles of even and odd number. On one hand the Yin-Yang duality, the cycle of 4 seasons, and 4 cardinal points, often combined with the 8 combinations of the Taoist trigram. On the other hand, the cycle of the 5 agents, 5 music notes, 5 tastes, and then extended into the cycle of the 10 heavenly roots through multiplication by Yin-Yang.
However with the 5 agents, the "earth" holds a status similar to the others, not central.
For those who saw the movie "Divergent", we can also match the 5 factions following this order: Amity (farmers), Dauntless (fighters), Candor (judges), Abnegation (selfless servants), and Erudite (scientists).
Friday, November 20 2015
By Matthieu on Friday, November 20 2015, 16:13 - Idées
The recent reading of the Wikipedia article on Jedi (the Star Wars frenzy can spark meaningful thoughts!) has lead me to realize how various fields of teaching and education can complement each others. Jedi are said to be "Polymaths", a word implying the mastery of many fields of knowledge, and at the Renaissance, mastery of arts as well. Since Jedi, like most Asian monastic traditions, blend rather physical training and wisdom, I came out with the following map of education:
The 4 fields of learning (Sport, Art, Science, Wisdom) are linked to 4 components of the person (Body, Heart, Mind, Soul), and nurture them with 4 types of food or accomplishment (health, beauty, science, peace).
Further, 4 types of historical teaching are proposed, giving emphasis on pairs of fields.
It is to be noted that back then, the definitions of the 4 fields were not as restrictive as shown here. For instance, Asian monks haven't excluded science but have been including part of it into their wisdoms.
Maybe an accomplished man has to explore and balance all these fields?
I've integrated this map into the broader cardinal cycle.
Wednesday, September 16 2015
By Matthieu on Wednesday, September 16 2015, 07:35 - Musique
After years of work, hours of joy and desperation, here is my first large scale musical work:
Sonate pour Hautbois et Piano (listen online)
The next step is to have it performed and recorded into a CD, and get it up there on Amazon.. Targeted by end of this year.
Tuesday, September 15 2015
By Matthieu on Tuesday, September 15 2015, 17:58 - Linguistique
Here is a version of my universal script Alfuni, simplified to fit a 7 segment digital display. This script is not strictly phonetic as it is mostly meant to offer a panel of characters to write most languages of the world. Letters can bear several phonetic values. The script can even be used with simple literal match, eg: write "Fountains" instead of the phonetic "Fawtenz", especially when Alfunepta doesn't have the required sounds.
The TTF file is available by clicking on the picture.
Here is the usual 1st article of the universal declaration of human rights, as sample text (literal match is used):
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Saturday, September 5 2015
By Matthieu on Saturday, September 5 2015, 07:01 - Linguistique
In the wake of some discussions about new Esperanto writing systems, I had the idea of recycling my old Alfuni script for the reduced scope of Esperanto sounds.
(click on the picture to download the TTF font)
Letters within a word can be grouped without ambiguity, which saves space. I also introduce the consonant Dz, for the sake of symmetry.
Simplifications include the combination of vowels into the consonant table, a feature that i tend now to always keep (W and U, Y and I, clearly match. H and A match in Arabic)
Here is the 1rst article of the universal declaration of human rights:
Ĉiuj homoj estas denaske liberaj kaj egalaj laŭ digno kaj rajtoj.
Ili posedas racion kaj konsciencon, kaj devus konduti unu la alian en spirito de frateco.
Wednesday, July 1 2015
By Matthieu on Wednesday, July 1 2015, 10:17 - Linguistique
My constructed language now explores the possibility of links with the melodies of the Zelda universe, looking for known words and roots, and then extracting new roots to create new words!
Friday, June 19 2015
By Matthieu on Friday, June 19 2015, 06:32 - Linguistique
Here is a quick summary of several creations around Vietnamese:
By Matthieu on Friday, June 19 2015, 06:02 - Linguistique
Since 2012, a new script has been developed for Laramin, my first constructed language. More than ever it fits the project since it's purely ideographic.
Laramin has always put the emphasis on "meaning in itself" as far as such thing is possible. That is, all derivations, declensions, and conjugations are done using radicals with independent meaning. The targeted reading experience is to have a very analytical language structure (all words and grammatical aspect can be broken down to few fundamental ideas) only using direct visual symbols. (not like: "A" is a deformed ox head loosely pronounced "a", which in some contexts is an indefinite article..)
Larasem (for LARAmin SEMantic script) is made of simple visual components shared by all human civilizations: hand, foot, eye, tree, branch, cup, etc. Most Larasem combine several components to form an ideogram. This method can be compared to the Chinese 会意字 which also puts together ideographic components. More explanations can be found in the introduction PDF.
Here is a sample with the original text, translation with Latin script, phonetic script, and finally the ideographic script :
Saturday, June 13 2015
By Matthieu on Saturday, June 13 2015, 04:23 - Café du commerce
A la suite de la tuerie de Charlie Hebdo, les réactions ont été vives de tous bords. Après une réflexion sur les divers idéaux invoqués, j'ai imaginé une carte pour les représenter, par affinités (vert) et conflits (rouge). Les outils neutres sont en gris.
Par "ordre naturel", j'entends l'équilibre selon lequel la nature s'agence en l'absence d'intervention humaine. Cet idéal se focalise sur la nature intrinsèque des choses et leur rôle (Dharma au sens large).
Les dilemmes enfin visualisés !
Et au fait, où est Charlie ?
Peut être entre les dilemmes des nations, du progrès, et de la censure: on préfère garder sa liberté de critiquer et de tuer* plutôt que de supporter les inconforts pour une cohabitation pacifique.
- "liberté de tuer", c'est à dire de faire justice soi-même: un droit qu'on aurait jugé naturel et fondamental à une époque préhistorique et proto-historique pas si lointaine que ça !
Cette liste de dilemmes peut rappeler la liste d’idéologies douteuses faite en 2010.
Une mission pour la langue Laramin
Ma langue construite Laramin cherche à construire son vocabulaire de sorte à résoudre ces dilemmes, en proposant un nouveau point de vu avec de nouvelles notions, de sorte que les subtiles équilibres philosophiques ci-dessus deviennent des évidences pour le locuteur. La langue est notre lunette sur le monde et nos réflexions. Je pense qu'on peut éviter le problème à la source.
Wednesday, April 1 2015
By Matthieu on Wednesday, April 1 2015, 04:27 - Linguistique
The webmaster just gave me the green light for adding my constructed script into the big collection of his website Omniglot. (KoreoViet is an extension of the Korean writing system to transcribe Vietnamese.)
Article connexe : Nouvel alphabet pour le Vietnamien / Korean-Vietnamese Alphabet
Saturday, March 21 2015
By Matthieu on Saturday, March 21 2015, 10:17 - Linguistique
It's time to get this out of my to-do list: a constructed language that came to my mind in September last year!
(Click on the picture to see the introduction PDF.)
The challenge is to develop a language in the frame of the samples already present in the games of The Legend of Zelda. The universe of the games contains a lot of names (characters, places, items, events, etc.) which serve as basis for the vocabulary of Hylian here. It would therefore be relatively easy to learn for a fan, already familiar with the world of Zelda.
Here is the ad-hoc alphabet:
(Click on the picture to get the TTF font.)
"C" is pronounced like "Sh".
In short, words are based on Roots, formed of 3 consonants. These Roots can be derived with vowels. For example:
Zelda => ZLD, which can give :
Here is another set of examples:
And here is an example of text:
Fans can discuss it on the Zelda Universe forum. For the language specialist forum, it's here: Hylien sur l'Atelier.
Some of you might remember a similar project, my first constructed language:
Laramin
Monday, March 9 2015
By Matthieu on Monday, March 9 2015, 07:30
Certains rêves révèlent parfois des réalités et connexions cachées de notre inconscient. A ce titre là, ils peuvent s’avérer plus "vrais" que le monde éveillé où règnent souvent les préjugés et dissimulations, par convention ou pudeur.
Homère a symbolisé cette idée dans l’Odyssée par un jeu de mot entre Corne/Ivoire (en grec Keras/Elephas) qui sonne avec Réalise/Trompe (en grec Krainoo/Elephairomai). Les rêves prémonitoires ou révélateurs venant par la porte de corne, tandis que ceux qui ne réalisent pas ou égarent viennent par celle d'ivoire.
Cette idée m'est revenue ce matin à la suite d'un tel rêve. La veille au soir j'avais regardée le film "L'Histoire sans fin" qui parle aussi de l’équilibre entre imaginaire et réalité (le livre plus que le film apparemment, qui se conclue sur la liberté grisante de l’imagination). On m'a aussi récemment offert le livre "La création du monde" de Jean D'Ormesson, qui évoque cette référence de l’Odyssée.
Wednesday, January 28 2015
By Matthieu on Wednesday, January 28 2015, 11:09 - Idées
I've been thinking for a couple of years how the ideal creation framework could look like. Of course it depends on the type of creation. In my case, I would like to combine and interweave:
The main building material would be the drawings, forming full-pages of visual environment. On these drawings there would be some URL links. Some would lead to other connected pages (moving to a nearby area, zooming into a particular region, zooming-out to the upper level), while some others would link to content, such as music or recipes, open in popup windows.
In practice, the universe creation would very simple:
The advantage of such framework is to aggregate the creative content into an interconnected system, that can grow organically from any of its parts! The visitor becomes an explorer who somehow interacts with the universe by choosing where to go and what to look at. It is inspired by the RPG-adventure video game style (Zelda, Final Fantasy, etc.).
Ideally, the framework would also feature comment threads on each page to let the visitors give feedback.
Now, comparing to what is available: Facebook allows to easily upload pictures and very intuitively place tags on it, but only to identify peoples. If those tags could contain any URL, that would do it! But no... DotClear allows pages in WHTML format with comments, but the width seems limited to the blog page, and placing the tag on the picture would be difficult...
Any other software suggestions to enable this creative boom? Thanks!
Thursday, January 8 2015
By Matthieu on Thursday, January 8 2015, 08:20 - Musique
J'ai transféré la majorité de mes compositions et arrangement vers l'interface SoundCloud, que j'aime beaucoup pour son interface intuitive et la possibilité de laisser des commentaires à des instants précis de la musique.
Sunday, December 7 2014
By Matthieu on Sunday, December 7 2014, 10:48 - Linguistique
Navigating across languages sometimes causes words to jump from one to another, especially with concise expressions. I owe "mamajujamente" to my Mexican friends who crafted it from Taiwan!
word | meaning | from | in | into |
---|---|---|---|---|
Berilalouer | give way | beri laluan | Malay | French |
Nalier | deny a compliment politely | 哪里 | Mandarin | French |
Tarofer | refuse a gift politely until accepting it | تعارف | Persian | French |
Jaexmicono | please.. | خواهش می کنم | Persian | Spanish |
Mamajujamente | so-so | 马马虎虎 | Mandarin | Spanish |
And here is an attempt to develop (or reconstruct?) English words from an apparent regular pattern linking pairs of verbs. Verbs on the first columns are acting on a object (transitive), whereas those on the second column act on themselves, or at least without object. (intransitive).
E verbs | A verbs | Examples |
---|---|---|
fell | fall | Felling the tree: make them fall. (or fail?) |
raise | rise | Raise your hand: make it rise. |
lay | lie | Lay down your legs: let them lie. |
bait | bite | Bait the fish: make it bite. |
braid | bride | The bride braids herself to the groom (to breed? hmm..) |
Interestingly in the 3 first lines or examples, we find that there is a shift from vowel E to A between the 2 columns. (phonetically we can convert raise=[rejz], rise=[rajz], lay=[lej], lie=[laj] ,bait=[bejt], bite=[bajt], braid=[brejd], bride=[brajd])
Following this rule, I (humbly) propose the following extensions:
Friday, September 5 2014
By Matthieu on Friday, September 5 2014, 17:18 - Coups de coeur
En gribouillant avec ma nouvelle plume de calligraphie, une phrase m'est venue... "Tous les jours offrent leur lot de surprises et présents", avec l’idée de parler des petites perles quotidiennes, que l'on ne reconnait pas toujours, que l'on considère souvent comme dues, et que l'on ne pense que rarement à transmettre, tels les héritiers d'une grâce.
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