NEGATIVE DATABASES: Museum

{updated: Wed Oct 24, 2007}

Museum of Negative Representation

The idea of negative representation has been explored in the arts and philosophy. Artists like Magritte and Escher have taken advantage of the so called figure-ground relationship. In Hindu philosophy, in saying "I am not this; no, nor am I this, nor this," that which then remains is a pure awareness of I. Examples can also be found everywhere from mathematics and statistics to popular culture where sometimes it is easier to obtain an answer by looking at the complement of the problem we intend to solve and complementing the solution. According to J. Oppenheim, even Quantum information can be negative to cancel the fact that we know too much. Here are some other fun examples we've collected.

'House' by
Rachel Whiteread
suggested by Gabriel Kuri

'Library' by Rachel Whiteread
suggested by Les Gasser

chair

'A Cast of Space Under My Chair'
by Bruce Nauman
suggested by Gabriel Kuri

cnut   When the seed is the fruit.
suggested by E S Ackley    poms
                                    by Nina Courtney

The Rubin Vase
(1915)

"Mr.Wong: ..We own so much stuff it easier just to brand everything that not ours ."

From Futurama™ episode: 'Where the Buggalo Roam' (©2002 FOX)
written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Pat Shinagawa

suggested by Futurama fans, Paul and his kids

"Combining dislikes can be easier than combining likes."
Adaptive Radio tries to play songs that are not disliked by anyone.

suggested by Stephanie Forrest

Silence in Music
"It's the notes you don't hear that matter." COUNT BASIE

"Expectancy, hesitation, impishness, heartbreak, release, etc." These are but a few of the many characters that silence can have in music according to Neal Stulberg, UCLA Visiting Director of Orchestral Studies. Like a frame of a great painting, silence can also help to focus an audience before a performance.

In music notation, an interval of silence is represented by the rest. When performed live in concert, a piece of music composed entirely of rests sustained for four minutes and thirty-three seconds, 4'33" by John Cage (1952), profoundly "...isn't soundless at all".

"Following in the tradition of silent singles, there's even a silent ringtone which has become a hit" as a useful application of the absence of sound for privacy from unknown callers or wrong numbers.

collected by e.s.ackley

"And in Sudoku, knowing where the numbers can't go
is just as important as knowing where they can go!"
—Merl Reagle, puzzlemaker.

A Negative Model

Scientific American: Cancer Clues from Pet Dogs [ MEDICINE ]
Studies of pet dogs with cancer can offer unique help in the fight against human malignancies while also improving care for man's best friend
suggested by Frank McLaughlin

The Journal of Spurious Correlations (JSpurC)
a new social-science journal devoted exclusively to publishing negative results.
suggested by Neal Stulberg

UnSuggested to Read..

The UnSuggester by LibraryThing.com offers a list of books to avoid, based on a book title that you enjoyed. Compared against books owned or read by their members, they come back with books least likely to share a library with yours.

suggested by Louise Settanni

Forget to Forgive?

Drawing a blank isn't necessarily a bad thing. Nevertheless, advances in technology have made it easier and cheaper for us to recall more, longer. This boundary shift between the forgotten and the remembered is the focus of the interdisciplinary study Designing for Forgetting and Exclusion.

suggested by Neal Stulberg

"By trying to talk ¾ of customers out of buying them", a tiny toy store moves more floating tops invented by former Los Alamos scientist Dr. Bill Hones.

offered by Matt Hannifin of Science Toy Magic, LLC in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
(..but he doesn't ship.)

Between the Lines

(a negative t-shirt)

suggested by Vernon Singleton at JavaOne 2007

"The Absence of Understanding" — L.K.

'Java'

'@'

'Unread'

welded steel and shadow by
Larry Kagan

suggested by Leah Shahmoon

(No more to come.)

For more information about Negative Databases, please contact
Fernando Esponda at fernando.esponda@itam.mx