Ahoy From Nudes, a Pirate and Scrooge McDuck

New York Times

Gary Snyder, on Pier 92, where the more conservative dealers are ensconced, has a fine display of '60s-style abstractions by Thomas Downing, ...

Venerable, Small and Lots on Paper (Including Napkins) New York Times



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Abstraction Adventures

NY Arts Magazine

Abstraction and the bravery it took to embrace and intently explore it, when she began in 1915, sets Georgia O'Keeffe at the front of American modernist ...



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Starring roles in play not a quantum leap for these two

Los Angeles Times

For Gross, that kind of abstraction is easy, but acting -- now, that's hard. He figures his grasp of science will help. "I saw a marvelous BBC production of ...

What is the difference between abstraction and distortion?
Q. In my humanities class, we learned the ways of representing subjects. Among these are abstraction and distortion. How are they different. My teacher told me that an example for abstraction is a stick-man figure. But shouldn't that be under distortion?
Asked by n_is_for_ninja - Tue Oct 16 09:02:50 2007 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments

A. well a stick man figure is a abstraction because it is reducing the human body if it were distorted it will have out of place eyes and so forth Abstraction--- is the process of generalization by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically in order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to a ball retains only the information on general ball attributes and behaviour. Similarly, abstracting an emotional state to happiness reduces the amount of information conveyed about the emotional state distortion--- is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of… [cont.]
Answered by artsy0606 - Thu Oct 18 11:54:33 2007

What are your views, on the limits of abstraction?
Q. By abstraction I mean the human capacity for generalization and association. It's one of our most powerful mental tools, and it's use can lead to more "fundamental truths." At some point though, the loss of accuracy must outweigh any additional benefit. A white canvas in theory reflects every color from every pixel and thus reflects every picture that can ever be, but as art, it has no value at all. How does one recognize that threshold where further abstraction is unproductive? Typhoon: Could you expand on that a bit? I'll set aside that Spinoza was a determinist who rejected the notion of free-will. Spinoza's concept of adequate ideas is clear enough. I'm a bit less comforable with the notion that any idea that follows from an… [cont.]
Asked by Jay S - Thu Aug 24 19:38:50 2006 - - 6 Answers - 0 Comments

A. I believe abstraction is unproductive when it has reached into theories that can not be confirmed and has sound evidence that strongly refutes the ideas in question. In essences, if our mental tools are to be powerful they must bring forth truth. What good is a "fundamental truth" that leads people into confusion given that it is truly a lie? How does deception serve the greater good in any arena of life? If a though or string of thoughts sounds right to us and we become pleased with our intellect since we are so astounded by it we should at least confirm our source of pride to be true. Least we truly be a fool or the emperor in no clothes. Bruce, Will you please better explain this statement? It is content that decreases as… [cont.]
Answered by Kathryn - Thu Aug 24 22:15:05 2006

Want to learn software abstraction layer of devices. Where do I start?
Q. Eventually I want to create an application that links a bunch of different hardware components. I currently know high level languages like Java, VB .NET, and MYSQL, but nothing about hardware interaction. I want to start with learning the software abstraction layer of devices. Any books or links to get me started would be great?
Asked by laxwrestler27 - Fri Mar 7 12:38:14 2008 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments