Third lecture, song at gallery

Yesterday I gave the third and final lecture at Sølvberget galleri in connection with Eli Glader´s video art exhibition "Vitner". The lecture was titled "Vi er alle migranter - Flukt som menneskets situasjon", and attended by 18 people. Ahead of the lecture, "Herfra til ingensteder" by my musical alias The Schopenhauer Experience was played.

Existentialist electronica act The Schopenhauer Experience releases single

My musical alias The Schopenhauer Experience has today released its first single, via the distribution service offered by EMU Bands (electronic release only). Some but not all of the songs of this act has philosophical (and poetic!) content - I write, compose, and occasionally sing. The single "Troll whisper" (with "This is God speaking (the many voices of God)" as a second track), with mechanical voices, is available for download via iTunes, and for streaming via Spotify and WiMP, among other venues.

Blog stats 2013

No. of pageloads, 2013 (change from 2012):

1 (2) Utopian Realism [academic blog] 6.252 (+676)

2 (1) Utopisk Realisme [political, Norwegian language blog] 4.379 (-6.161)

3 (3) SemioPhenomenon [site for the Tartu phenomenology meets semiotics workshops in 2009] 166 (-1) 

4 (4) The Schopenhauer Experience [existentialist electronica] 144 (+8) 

2013 was likely the first year where this blog, Utopian Realism, was my most visited blog, overtaking my Norwegian language blog Utopisk Realisme. As the numbers show, however, this is due to a sharp decrease in visits to Utopisk Realisme rather than to the small increase in visits to Utopian Realism. Combined the four blogs mentioned above had 10.941 pageloads, which is 5-6.000 fewer than in 2012.

All-time no. of pageloads (here numbers conflict - these are from the bottoms of the blogs themselves):

1. Utopisk Realisme 49.524
2. Utopian Realism 26.566
3. SemioPhenomenon 3.814
4. Kardemomme Tidende 1.784
5. The Schopenhauer Experience 1.024

Grand total: 82.712 pageloads, on this count.

See also:

Web stats 2012 (blogs etc.) (January 2013)

Web statsand most viewed at Scribd (January 2011)

Web stats 2012 (blogs etc.)

Webstats, 2012 (pageloads)

1. Utopisk Realisme [political, Norwegian language blog] 10.540
2. Utopian Realism [academic blog] 5.576
3. SemioPhenomenon [site for the Tartu phenomenology meets semiotics workshops in 2009] 167
4. The Schopenhauer Experience [existentialist electronica] 136

Combined these four blogs/webpages had 5% returning visitors - Utopian Realism had the highest percentage, with 7,8% (307 out of 3.919), while Utopisk Realisme had 3,6% returning visitors (279 out of 7.788). Whereas the numbers of this blog thus represented more than half of all returning visitors, almost 2/3 of all visitors at large visited my Norwegian language political blog, and about 1/3 this blog.

Webstats, all-time (pageloads as of today, January 3rd 2013)

1. Utopisk Realisme 45.174
2. Utopian Realism 20.230
3. SemioPhenomenon 3.646
4. The Schopenhauer Experience 878

See also similar post from January 2011. Unfortunately, I did not post on webstats for the year 2011 as a whole (though the math could be done in hindsight as well...), but all numbers indicate that 2011 was the year so far with most hits and reads. This must be understood in light of my blogging frequency: Whereas I wrote 217 posts in Utopian Realism in 2010 and 228 in 2011, for instance, I wrote only 137 posts in 2012  - not due to any lack of activities to report, but rather due to lack of time for blogging about my non-blogging activities, due to a heavy work-load*. Similarly, in Utopisk Realisme I wrote 135 posts in 2009, 117 in 2010 and 134 posts in 2011, but only 60 posts in 2012. Nevertheless, some 200 posts in these two blogs combined is not all that bad, is it?

* I still hope to get to the bottom of my Utopian Realism backlog, in time.

I have a couple of other blogs as well, but do not regularly keep track of their web stats.

Song and video: "Semioteque"

The Schopenhauer Experience, my musical alter ago, has over the last three weeks or so composed and produced a song entitled "Semioteque". The song can be heard on Picosong, and a video (made by my wife Helena da Silva-Tønnessen) can be watched on YouTube.

The song and video has been made at the occasion of my mother, Elise Seip Tønnessen's, 60 year anniversary, which was celebrated yesterday. "Semioteque" does not feature ordinary vocals, but instead samples from Umberto Eco's lecture in Tartu, Estonia on May 6th 2009, 'On the Ontology of Fictional Characters: a Semiotic Study' (more specifically samples of rector Alar Karis, me, and Umberto Eco). That whole session can be watched on video on the webpages of University of Tartu.

The full transcript of my question and Umberto Eco's answers has been posted in Utopian Realism, with a comment written in hindsight, in 2009. The edited excerpts made use of in the song "Semioteque" reads like this:

[not transcribed: Alar Karis, speaking in Estonian. ...]

MT: And I would like you to say something about what role fiction can be said to play within natural science...

Eco: No... No, I missed ... the real question.

MT: Let me finish. Um…

(MT: And I would like you to say something about what role fiction can be said to play within natural science... )

(Eco: No... No, I missed ... the real question.)

MT: And often in applied science, we start out with imagining something that does not exist – it’s totally mind-dependent; and then we carry it into life. … Isn’t that the work of fiction?

Eco: No! I... Take, for instance the cold fusion. Typical example of a scientific hoax.

Eco: I don’t say that it’s a fiction – it’s a mistake, which is different.

Eco: I say that there is fiction when the author pretends to say the truth, and asks you to pretend that you are believing it.

Eco: If not, it’s a lie. If I tell you there is an elephant outside… and you naively go out to see whether it is there or not, that is not a case of fiction, I am only a *** liar... And you are too naive, hehe.

Eco: Except, you are not Thomas Aquinas! His comrades told him… 'Thomas, there is an ass flying on the skies', and he went out … (to) look. Hehe…

MT: Isn’t that the work of fiction?

This edited transcript has been added to The Schopenhauer Experience's lyrics section, along with previous material (which includes original song lyrics, original poems, and cover songs).

Web stats and most viewed at Scribd

Webstats, all-time (change since June 9th 2010)
1. Utopisk Realisme 18.502 (+4.495)
2. Utopian Realism 7.306 (+2.946)
3. SemioPhenomenon 3.225 (+252)
4. The Schopenhauer Experience 563 (+145)

Scribd - in English
1. (1) The statistician's guide to Utopia: The future of growth 1.531 (+442) No. 2
2. (6) Curriculum Vitae of Morten Tønnessen [May 1st 2010] 1,086 reads (+753) No. 1
3. (2) Steps to a semiotics of being (ppt) 795 (+228) No. 4
4. (3) Utopian Realism 2009 723 (+249) No. 3
5. (4) Umwelt transition: Uexküllian phenomenology (research plan) 585 (+204) No. 5
6. (5) Semio (poster) 484 (+106)
7. (7) Environmental problems in light of Gabriel Marcel's distinction problem/mystery 390 (+84)
8. (8) POSTER The nature view held by environmentalists 364 (+84)
9. (9) ABSTRACT The nature view held by environmentalists 363 (+110)
10. (10) Signs grow, but should they? 298 (+80)
11. (11) Reversing the brain drain 260 (+69)
12. (12) The nature view held by environmentalists 255 (+92)
13. (13) 'Tell me, where is morality bred?' (The semioethics interviews 1) 233 (+93)

Scribd - in Norwegian
1. (2) Utopisk Realisme 2009 1.260 (+488) No. 1
2. (1) Historieløst om klima 1.086 (+233) No. 4
3. (3) Om fluer og filosofi (intervju med Arne Næss) 1.077 (+404) No. 2
4. (4) Hvem har ansvaret for volden? 735 (+94)
5. (5) Burlesk vitenskapsparodi 647 (+228) No. 5
6. (6) Tidsvitne (omslag) 638 (+261) No. 3
7. (7) 20 års moratorium mot oljeleting 519 (+214)
8. (8) Preludium til romanen HUFF 422 (+127)
9. (9) Europa i overgangsalderen 318 (+80)
10. (11) Svart bok 1998 301 (+93)
11. (10) Jakob von Uexküll og øyets verden 292 (+68)

Scribd - in Estonian
Must naine Tartus 596 (+151)

Scribd - totals
Total reads: 16.345 (+5.183)
Uploads: 28 (+3)
Followers: 18 (+1)

Where is David Wood?

Some time back i answered to a call for contributions to eco-phenomenologist David C. Wood's new chronopod, to be placed in the Amazones - but I have not heard from him since.

Reported missing:
* My song "Herfra til ingensteder" [From here to nowhere]
* Its lyrics
* My song "Alene (på en stein i mørket)" [Alone (on a stone in the dark)]
* Its lyrics
* An original illustration of my own making - of a 'global ontological map'