Alright Tools for thought, note taking, and zettelkasten nerds. Anyone want to take a guess at who this philosopher is and what that is up on the shelf behind him? Hint: it’s not Roam Research or Obsidian.
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Chris Aldrich
I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media. View all posts by Chris Aldrich
Is that Roland Barthes? No idea what’s behind him but I’d be curious to know!
You in your younger days? 😛
I only wish my hair was as dark as that at 47!
Syndicated copies:
We have a winner in @CJEller3.
https://twitter.com/CJEller3/status/1512970696304959489
It’s Roland Barthes in a well-known image taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1963, around the time of the publication of Sur Racine.
Behind him are some hanging files along with several index card files (French: fichier boîte, German: Zettelkasten) containing his collection of notes that would eventually number over 12,250 by the time of his death in 1980.
Much as Niklas Luhmann did of his own zettelkasten (see: Communicating with Slip Boxes), Barthes considered his note collection a co-author or collaborator in his work.
More details and references in Wilken, Rowan. “The Card Index as Creativity Machine.” Culture Machine 11 (2010): 7–30.
Want to discuss it further? Meet me in the margins of @endotician‘s paper: https://docdrop.org/pdf/The-Card-Index-as-Creativity-Ma—Wilken-Rowan-upq8g.pdf/ where you’ll find a searchable portion of my own “index card file” notes courtesy of Hypothes.is.
Incidentally for those who would like it, and since I didn’t provide alt-text for the photo (on Twitter, accept my apologies), Wilken has a detailed description and lots of additional context for the photo.
@chrisaldrich I love photos like this, thanks. The part I try to ignore is that if all this was happening today, he’d almost certainly would be using Obsidian or whatever and Bresson would have taken his portrait using a mirrorless digital camera with a zoom lens. Or his iPhone :). Blech!
@jack Hahahahahah.. You’re probably right.
This is brilliant stuff. Thanks for sharing Chris
This is wild. Thanks for sharing. I had no idea Wittgenstein used cards but it makes perfect sense given the structure of his work.
And thanks for pointing me to docdrop, what an excellent site!
This Status was mentioned on old.reddit.com
There’s also a nice video (in French) with a reasonable overview of some of Barthes’ Grand Fichier which is held at the BnF: Dans le fichier de Roland Barthes
There’s something incredibly important to learn in studying two very similar photographs of Mortimer J. Adler from the middle of the last century. I’ll present…