Blog

Archive for the ‘art’ tag

Dec 7, 2021

Continuity. An evolutionary perspective on art — Denisa Lepădatu

Posted by in categories: evolution, media & arts, robotics/AI
The Garden of Earthly Delights, closed, H. Bosch

Right after the Big Bang, in the Planck epoch, the Universe occupied a space region with a radius of 1.4 × 10-13 cm – remarkably, equal to the fundamental length characterizing elementary particles. Analogue to the way nearly all cells contain the DNA information required to build the entire organism, every region the size of an elementary particle had then the energy necessary for the Universe’s creation.

As the Universe cooled down, electrons and quarks were the first to appear, the latter forming protons and neutrons, combining into nuclei in a mere matter of minutes. During its expansion, processes started happening slower and slower: it took 380,000 years for electrons to start orbiting around the nuclei, and 100 million years for hydrogen and helium to form the first stars. Even more, it wasn’t until 4.5 billion years ago that our young Earth was born, with its oceans emerging shortly after, and the first microbes to call them home for the first time. Life took over our planet in what seems, on the scale of the Universe, a sheer instant, and turned this world into its playground. There came butterflies and tricked the non-existence of natural blue pigment by creating Christmas tree-shaped nanometric structures in their wings to reflect blue’s wavelength only; fireflies and lanternfish which use the chemical reaction between oxygen and luciferin for bioluminescence; and it all goes all the way up to the butterfly effect leading to the unpredictability of the weather forecasts, commonly known as the reason why a pair of wings flapping in Brazil can lead to a typhoon in Texas. The world as we know it now developed slowly, and with the help of continuous evolution and natural selection, the first humans came to life.

Without any doubt, we are the earthly species never ceasing to surprise. We developed rationality, logic, strategic and critical thinking, yet human nature cannot be essentially defined without bringing into the equation our remarkable appetite for art and beauty. In the intricate puzzle human existence represents, this particular piece has given it valences no other known being possesses. Not all beauty is art, but many artworks both in the past, as well as today, embody some understanding of beauty.

To define is to limit, as Oscar Wilde stated, and even though we cannot establish clear definitions of art and beauty. Yet, great works of art manage to establish a strong thread between the creator and receptor. In contrast to this byproduct of human self-expression that encapsulates unique creative behaviour, beauty has existed long before our emergence as a species and isn’t bound to it in any way. It is omnipresent, a metaphorical Higgs field that can be observed by the ones who wish to open their eyes thoroughly. From the formation of Earth’s oceans and butterflies’ blue wings to Euler’s identity and rococo architecture, beauty is a subjective ubiquity. Though a question remains – why does it evoke such pleasure in our minds? What happens in our brains when we see something beautiful? The question is the subject of an entire field, named neuroaesthetics, which identified an intricate whole-brain response to artistic stimuli. As such, our puzzling reactions to art can be explained by these responses similar to “mind wandering”, involving “thoughts about the self, memory, and future”– in other words, art seems to evoke our past experiences, present conscious self, and imagination about the future. There needs to be noted that critics of the field draw attention to the superficiality and oversimplification that may characterize our attempts to view art through the lenses of neuroscience.

Continue reading “Continuity. An evolutionary perspective on art — Denisa Lepădatu” »

Dec 6, 2018

NASA Contest: Design the Gateway Program Graphic

Posted by in category: astronomy

Under Space Policy Directive-1, NASA has been charged with leading a “sustainable exploration of the Moon together with commercial and international partners.”

In response to this bold directive, NASA is working with U.S. and international partners to lead the development of the first permanent human spaceship in orbit around the Moon, known as the Gateway. The Gateway will be a part-time home and office for astronauts farther in space than humans have ever been before.

The Gateway will be important to building a permanent human presence on the Moon. Astronauts will visit at least once per year, living and working aboard the spaceship in deep space for up to three months at a time. NASA is looking at options for astronauts to shuttle between the Gateway and the lunar surface, to explore new locations across the Moon. Even before our first trip to Mars, astronauts will use the Gateway to train for life far away from Earth, and we will use it to practice moving a spaceship in different orbits in deep space.

Continue reading “NASA Contest: Design the Gateway Program Graphic” »

Oct 8, 2015

Metamorphose: 1999 Documentary Reveals the Life & Work of Artist M.C. Escher | Open Culture

Posted by in category: media & arts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCiqqszGT6Y

“Made in 1999 by Dutch director Jan Bosdriesz, the documentary Metamorphose: M.C. Escher, 1898–1972 takes its title from one of Escher’s more well-known printsin which the word “metamorphose” transforms itself into patterns of abstract shapes and animals.”

Read more

Aug 21, 2015

Art Or Design?: Welcome To The Improvisational Carpentry Of Nicolás Aracena Müller — By Diana Budds | Fast Company

Posted by in category: media & arts

3050153-inline-i-2-the-improvisational-carpentry-of-nicolas-copy

“Müller, who is based in Chile, calls the concept improvisational carpentry. He traveled to New York and wandered the city streets and dove into dumpsters searching for materials he could turn into pieces that are part sculpture, part theater, and part design. He believes that working with cast-off items reflects the city’s character. (The mottled woods certainly captures New York’s tougher side.)”

Read more

Jul 10, 2015

The Art of Time | The Plus

Posted by in categories: hardware, software

25

Art and photography often dovetail nicely, to the point of being indistinct at times. But rarely does photography achieve the sort of free-flowing, brush-like effects that Matt Molloy imbues his incredible Time Stack photographs with. “My time stack series is a lot like a digital version of what the impressionist painters where trying to achieve in the 19th-century,” says Matt.

Read more

Jun 25, 2015

OS Fermentation Salon Series — By EcoArtTech

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, food, health

Ferment_Selfies_Three_SITE_900px


“OS FERMENTATION events have included installations, workshops, prints, and tastings. The installation includes digital prints created by custom electronics and software that allow microbes to take their own “selfies” and add image manipulation effects to their images based on the shifting pH levels, oxygen, and color values of the fermentation process.”

Read more

Jun 5, 2015

Pakistani Comicbook Fights Violent Extremism, One Panel at a Time — Tasbeeh Herwees @ Good

Posted by in categories: counterterrorism, education, entertainment, futurism, media & arts

11263103_1452280288404147_4905678460775316482_o.jpg=s750x1300

When you consider that one of the most vulnerable targets of violent extremism are kids who don’t have access to education, we really had to try and make the art captivating and yet simple enough to explain the story to someone even if they can’t read the words,” Aftab told Hyperallergic.

Read more

May 19, 2013

Electronic Music as Emerging Tech. Embryo of Art’s Entire Future — Part One

Posted by in categories: human trajectories, media & arts, neuroscience

Artifacts, Artifictions, Artifutures 0.5

It’s not a physical landscape. It’s a term reserved for the new technologies. It’s a landscape in the future. It’s as though you used technology to take you off the ground and go like Alice through the looking glass.
John Cage, in reference to his 1939 Imagined Landscape [1].

In the last installment (see here, here and here) I argued that the increasing prominence and frequency of futuristic aesthetics and themes of empowerment-through-technology in EDM-based mainstream music videos, as well as the increasing predominance of EDM foundations in mainstream music over the past 3 years, helps promote general awareness of emerging-technology-grounded and NBIC-driven concepts, causes and potential-crises while simultaneously presenting a sexy and self-empowering vision of technology and the future to mainstream audiences. The only reason this is mentionable in the first place is the fact that these are mainstream artists and labels reaching very large audiences.

In this installment, I will be analyzing a number of music videos for tracks by “real EDM” artists, released by exclusively-EDM record labels, to show that these futuristic themes aren’t just a consequence of EDM’s adoption by mainstream music over the past few years, and that there is long history of futuristic aesthetics and gestalts in electronic music, as well as recurrent themes of self-empowerment through technology.

In this part I will discuss some of these recurrent themes, which can be seen to derive from a number of aspects shared by Virtual Art (any art created without the use of physical instruments), of which contemporary electronic music is an example because it is created using software. I argue that this will become the predominant means of art production — via software — for all artistic mediums, from auditory to visual to eventual olfactory, somatosensory and proprioceptual artistic mediums. The interface between artist and art will become progressively thinner and more transparent, culminating in a time where Brain-Computer-Interface technology can sense neural operation and translate this directly into an informational form to be played by physical systems (e.g. speakers) at first, but eventually into a form that can be read by given person’s own BCI instantiated phenomenologically via high-precision technological neuromodulation (of which deep brain stimulation is an early form).

Continue reading “Electronic Music as Emerging Tech. Embryo of Art's Entire Future — Part One” »