Once the video art project "Embrace the error" was announced, I immediately had absolutely no clue what to do. My brain froze up. I went though a total of three ideas that I followed-through with, but none of them were fruitful. I hated all of them as soon as I had finished them.
Finals week approached, I had lots of dinners to go to, plans to sort out, projects to finish, things to study, and my freezer had turned into an ice cube. A lot was taking over my mind.
And nothing was coming to me. What sort of errors could I use? Sound? No, that was too difficult. Video processing? No, I didn't have any software equipment on hand.
As I was frantically trying to force out an idea, I realized something: I couldn't think of anything. My brain refused to function. It was frozen. FROZEN, just like my freezer, which was also an error. Instead of worrying about cleaning out my freezer... Why not make it art, first? Why not illustrate my inactive brain on finals week?
For my performance art, I took my friends Sammy (camera girl), Gershom and Tim on a little serenading adventure.
Gershom is pretty much a musical genius, although he doesn't like to think so. He's great at making up melodies on the spot, and so I asked for his help.
Tim, however, while being a rather decent guitar player, has been gifted with improvising lyrics on the spot, so he'll be singing.
I don't really play an acoustic instrument, so I'm on the cajon; a wooden box-drum with a snare built into the top corners.
...So we went around to random people. Gershom and I were dressed nearly the same in a rather plain, monotone outfit so that all the attention would go to the bow-tied Tim. We wanted our performance to be more about the words than the music. We sang love-songs to total strangers who were men, songs about what people were doing. Some songs were intentionally made a little bit uncomfortable, and some were accidentally super-uncomfortable, and while some people didn't very much enjoy our performance, some played along and became part of the performance.
None of this was pre-determined, and nearly everyone we played for was a stranger. We decided to just go out and play for whoever, whenever, wherever. We realized how many people at school seemed to drone on with a sad, blank expression. Hundreds of students each day plodding along, treating each day like it was just a "back to the grind" kind of day. Staff doing their jobs whom we've seen dozens of time. People we so often, but never see smile. And so, we went on a quest to change that.
And... most of the time, it worked. Here's my favorite scene. Notice the group of men at the table in the beginning, and look at their expressions before we approach them, and watch how we quickly change them.
And here's a quick compilation of everything.
A little bit of this was solely for making people happy (usually) and a little bit of an experiment, as well. I consider this a success.
Once the synthesizer was brought into existence through the Moog devices, experimentation in music exploded, leading to thousands of experiments in music and sound. One such result was disco. Not only a pioneering land-mark of the colorful and creative applications of fashion and hair conditioning, the sound became very distinct. A twangy guitar, dancing bassline, and the occasional violin characterized the movement. Giorgio Moroder was the first to dabble in these new noises, and not long after, nightclubs and bands and even a movie starring the unique, new musical movement began to appear.
But it quickly, all at once, died away with a violent backlash. What could have caused disco, which started as a fun-loving, intense, colorful era of music, to become one of the most despised, hated, oppressed musical movements of all time?
The pressure outside of disco is greater than the atmospheric pressure inside of disco, causing a rapid movement by molecules in the air in the exo-disco area into the disco
As any interesting noise pattern, sound, or creativity, everyone with a microphone and a recording label will soon overdo, overkill, and overuse it. Songs would include a little violin, and people would go "Oh, that's gotta be disco!" The genre became everything, and it was kind of annoying to people.
Not to mention, disco clubs were popular with the crowd of non-traditional sexuality. Occurring soon around the AIDS crisis, which is renown for killing thousands and thousands of homosexuals (not exclusively, but most notably), anti-gay tensions were growing. And so, the anti-disco movement was fueled in part by tension from opposing views of more personal things, as well as the fact that garbage like "Disco Duck" was being fired into the ears of the innocent.
"Kill me" -Disco Duck
But thank goodness for the death of disco, because without it, we wouldn't have house music, where Disk Jockeys would mix the good parts of disco and rock music at clubs, live. And from that, stems nearly every pop song now.
An article explained how annoying disco once became. It pointed out that, like nowadays, a certain noise or beat will be absurdly over-incorporated into songs to the point that the music being produced loses artistic value, and just becomes a noise that was once interesting, put on a 3-minute loop.
And the same thing is going on today, and it really pushes my buttons. Like dubstep and most pop songs, a little "bassy" wubbywub or grinding noise will be inserted into a song. But it isn't there because it enhances the song, it's there because someone said "Oh, when I drop a toaster and play it in slow motion, it makes a funny noise. Everyone is doing it! Let's stick it everywhere!"
-insert noise of king bass falling onto the face of the earth at the press of a button-
If a similar thing isn't happening right now, it's coming. Just you wait, America.
Making cutouts of my body parts, fetched from a scanner and hit gluing them to a homemade book cover created this. I wanted to show how people are a part of their writing and reading, and in the middle of creating or indulging in a book or electronic wordspace, it occupies us as we occupy it and we become a symbiotic entity.
The hot glue strings and lines at first were messy and unappealing to me, but the more I looked at them, the more I like them. They look like hollow hairs and pulsing veins, further convincing me of the illusion that our works are "alive" beings, interracting in a very real way with us.
People like to classify people and personalities as "archetypes", or "dominant psychological traits", such as with personality tests, zodiac signs, horoscopes, "dog people" and "cat people", Apple and Microsoft, etc. However, archetypes tend to be more innocent in nature than outright saying "You're white, go away." Instead of labeling people, which is "bad", intended to separate people, archetypes are more focused on identifying people in an effort to better understand them.
Take for example, the Myers Briggs test, an imperfect description of archetypes. The test breaks up most personalities into 16 combinations of introversion and extroversion, knowing and sensing, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving. It isn't made to cause people to say "Oh, ew, you're a ____", but rather to help people identify how best to relate to people, labeling people based on a symbol that typically embodies an exaggeration or pure form of someone's personality. A lawful, logical person, for example, is a "judge". An avid learner and creator is an "engineer", and a thieving, lying person is a "senator". That was technically a stereotype, my bad.
I, personally, like archetypes. i think there's something important in recognizing differences and trying best to create coordination in people groups, taking into account the differences of how people operate. "It takes all kinds of people", they say, and...
Tangential rant, I hate when people take the definition and identification of race, gender, skills, and differences in general as something that is always negative because "labels are bad and do nothing but destroy humanity all the time without exceptions". I find that labels are a tool, and when utilized, create a more cognitive environment. I mean, I get when people want to try to treat everyone equality, but... Doctors don't prescribe the same medicine to every patient. Food stores don't throw everything on one shelf, uncategorically. And we don't all dress the same. We wouldn't normally ask a music teacher to build us bridges, and we don't go to Disney World for gasoline to fill our vehicles. Things are different, and if (I say "if" because it'll never happen) we learn that our differences are beneficial to the community, then we will achieve a peace that is not possible to acquire if we just ignored our differences. I'm good at math, and someone else is good at writing, so obviously, someone who wants help in writing wouldn't come to me. That's ineffective and impractical. People are different for a reason, we have different heritages to give us a space that is uniquely and comfortably our own, and people are different for the good of others.
Anywho, archetypes help us better understand how to relate to eachother. I won't ask an introvert to help me give a presentation because they are truly, truly, inconfident and uncomfortable in those situations. It's nice to be able to find other people that are genuinely like me and relate to them, and archetypes help me do that.
I remember a video game I loved to play, Spore. In that game, you evolved from a cell, to an animal, to a tribe, to a civilization, to a space-faring super-race. The decisions on how you interract with other cells, packs of animals, tribes and cities throughout the game will give you an "Archetype", giving you certain bonuses and dialogue options for your race and character. Certain archetypes get along better with other ones, and lots of archetypes are distrusted. For example, a race that blows up planets and turns air into lava isn't really "best friend" material.
Brion Gysin is responsible for creating a super psychedelic, kind of freaky instrument called the "Dream Machine". It's a tube with holes punched into it and a lightbulb inside, spun around quickly at a certain speed. If you are to sit in front of it (or stand, lie down, do whatever, it doesn't matter) with your eyes closed in front of it, the mathematical patterns and light frequencies would alter your vision and you'll effectively get a high. Only sensory, though, you won't actually feel any different. Maybe. I've never tried it.
It seems pretty scary, though, I wouldn't try it. One of the reasons I don't do drugs is because I'm scared of my brain. Like Salvador Dali said, "I don't do drugs, I am drugs."
The drug in question probably wasn't "Ibuprophen", too.
This was created in the era of when drug usage was less than optional and was more than common in creating less than usual art, most of the time. So, this was pretty much a renewable resource, so long as a power outlet was at hand. It was also legal! And it didn't set off any smoke alarms! Imagine that! It was a hit among rebellious teens, rebellious adults, and rebellious kids (i.e. artists). Its effects were sub-par, making only complex colors and patterns, as opposed to the possibility of entering the realm of Tapirs with chainsaws for eyelashes, accessible via other things considerably more costly. But the ease of usage and legality of it made it inspiring.
Anywho, I also like to think that I'm darn-close to my potential of creativity, already. People say hallucinogens "open your mind", which I'm pretty sure is accurate, with letting your imagination getting rerouted directly to your nervous system, and being able to taste colors and smell emotions, or something. However, I like to think that my mind is pretty free flowing as it is, and I'd like to create a lifestyle that's independent of the need of outside, chemical influences when it comes to my creativity and emotions (Dr Pepper excluded).
Also don't wanna end up like this.
Team Fortress 2 is always applicable. Even when it comes to hallucinogens.
We are learning about how the introduction of the screen created incidental disassembling of images and videos, as pixels are not as defined as the real world. Pixels cause the loss of detail. So, to reproduce this idea, I decided to reproduce an image of my hand holding a $20 bill.
Then I used a little Photoshop-magic to pixelate it into a grid of solid squares of color. After the picture was edited and ready for construction, my father delivered to me several keyboards (for the computer, like, typing) and I popped the keys off of several of them with a screwdriver.
Then I cut out cardboard and glued all the keys to it, then painted them one-by-one
Steve Jobs once gave a speech to a graduating class at Stanford College, and in that address, he gave his life story, essentially, and revealed his inspirations for his aspirations. He spoke on being fired from his own company, company failures, and overcoming pancreatic cancer (eerily enough). He talked about how he had many challenges in building his empire, and talked a bit about his reasons for leaving college, and how that gave him room to be successful. That was interesting, considering he was talking to load of graduates.
He encouraged the group to keep experimenting and doing things that others advise against, if their hearts were in the right place. He spoke about how the company Apple was made up of artists, historians, poets and writers at first, and greatly commended studies in aesthetics and humanities. He believe, as do I, that people with a more cultural exposure make the products. I, too, endorse artsiness.
I'm a fan of Microsoft, to be honest. Apple stuff bugs me a bit too much, but still, I think Steve Jobs was exceptional in what he and his company made.
In 1938, October 30th, the night before Halloween, Orson Welles made a radio performance to the nation. He began to read-off an adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds", mentioning that it was fiction at the start, but it was read as if it were a news broadcast, from the perspective of a reporter in the midst of a Martian invasion. It was a very convincing and involving radio show, here it is, if you have an hour-ish to spare.
In fact, it was so convincing, that people flipped out. They ran amok, most of the radio-owning population was convinced that the staged radio performance was an actual announcement, and fearful that martians were taking over humanity. Suicides spiked and marbles were lost (metaphorically, and maybe literally).
It may seem kind of silly to imagine this, as people are going nuts over a little piece of show. But, like I mentioned in the "Great Train Robbery", this was the first time anyone had seen of heard anything like this, and so, madness ensued.
"A Clockwork Orange" is Nadsat for "A robotically responsive man". Nadsat isn't a real language, either, it's the little dialect that was made-up by Anthony Burgess in his novel, "A Clockwork Orange". This novel was later made into a movie, featuring the rebellious and heinous acts of a futuristic, "ultra-violent" and rebellious youth, Alex, who is later made to pay for his crimes through mentally torturous experiments, and becomes mentally sensitive to violence.
The molodoy nadsat that dratses old lewdies.
This movie is not for the faint-hearted eunuch jelly, and I know this because I am a pretty squeamish guy, and it was near traumatizing. But if you have the guttiwuts to sit through it, it's a very interessovating psychological thriller with terrifying implications.
But anywho, about that Nadsat. Anthony Burgess decided to narrate his book from the first person view of Alex, and as with any time period, his language is laced with slang. But in order to draw the illusion of the strangeness but vague similarity of the future, he made up words and used them as if they were actual words. Throughout the novel, and movie, certain words would be seamlessly replaced by their Nadsat translations, and consistently, too. Burgess took Russian translations for most of the words, and altered much of them to make them slightly more strange. And for others, he abbreviated synonyms, for example, "money" is called cutter, which is reminiscent of "bread and butter". And for the rest, he just made stuff up. But exactly why did he do this?
Being a book published in 1962, some notoriously odd slang was beginning to form. Predicting that this phenomenon of people making up words would continue for the rest of the existence of humanity, as always has been done, he decided to use dialect as a way of adding to the illusion of time travel. Futuristic scenery is always a fascinating subject. Because of elements like clothing, music, architecture and dialect, when we go in to watch a movie, we can sense that the setting is either in the past because things looks familiar, or in the present because things looks familiar. But oddly enough, we can also tell when something is futuristic, even though we have no idea what the future will look like.
Dialect is often recycled, when words become twisted to mean something else and sound slightly different over a period of time. So by displaying a highly distorted, amusingly silly form of language, we automatically infer that this alien slang is the process of many, many "recyclings" of language. The elements of these made-up words make the movie that much more detailed.
As you may have noticed, fellow Art and technology student or curious onlooker, I have been discussing "motion pictures", pictures that are so barely similar and played so rapidly in sequence that it gives the illusion of motion. Such is every movie, just a serious of dozens, thousands, millions of photos. It wasn't long after film was invented with camera and photographs that people started to realize "Wait, can't we just DRAW movies?"
"Toot-toot!" -Steamboat
Well honestly, the idea began to float around for some time with little animated shorts and shows, like Felix the Cat, and productions of the famous Walt Disney, like Silly Symphonies and Steamboat Willie. But it wasn't until "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Fellowship of the Apple" came out (I added the fellowship part, don't throw a riot) that the possibility of pure animation as a mode of cinematic entertainment was relevant. The first full length film made from scratch and paint was produced. And, here's what surprised everyone, it made money! Animation had really begun to well-up in popularity before its release, becoming a fun little area to venture in for the artist.
Stop motion videos and animations are all over, now, like the infamous "GIF" image format, which despite being infamous for relatively poor photo quality in color range, has animation support, allowing for humorous little quips and snippets composed of several images in sequence to be pasted all over the web.
Obligatory Team Fortress material. Deal with it.
And also, I am reminded of the "game" called "Gary's Mod". This little "game" is... well, it isn't really a game on its own. It's a program that allows you to use props and characters from almost any PC game you may own, put them in any setting of almost any game you own, and mess around. You can strap rockets to chairs, make people with tiny heads, and most notably, pose characters and freeze facial expressions. Before the game developer, VALVe, created the game filming software "Source Film Maker", people used Gary's Mod (commonly called GMod) to make movies. Creators would pose the characters and take a picture, pose the characters a little differently and take a picture, then repeat the process for hours. Then, they would assemble the pictures, play them in sequence, add music, and create little animations, then immediately upload them to YouTube. The poor production quality contributed to the remarkably low frame rate, creating humorously abrupt and choppy animations to experiment with, leading to the evolution and demand of Source Film Maker, which is developed and almost exclusively used for Team Fortress 2 videos. However, many many aspiring animators are getting jobs from the attention grabbed by their high quality videos and animations. Here's a good one that won several awards and was actually played on live television at the international, annual "Video Game Awards", made by an animator for Bethesda. Once again, Team Fortress 2 related.
With all the GMod and SFM videos being made, I strongly believe that the amateur animation movement is being promoted and dabbled in more than ever, and I'm proud to promote it.
No sir, this isn't leaked footage of the long lost GTA prequel from the 1900's; this is a real-life movie! This was produced as one of the films by the infamous Edison Film Company (which, if you read the little footnote of my last blog, you'd know I have this prejudiced distaste for). I was going to describe the ingenuity of Edison and his undeniably philanthropic efforts to make science and arts a purely entertaining medium with no motives for money-hoarding whatsoever, but now that I think about it, that would probably just devolve into me using all sorts of bitter sarcasm to jab at him for effortlessly ripping-off the lives of creatures and humans and their honest creativities, all in an attempt to become a business powerhouse.
And... that would be mean.
So let's look at this video of a few men robbing a train. For almost 1900 years, the public has been asking "How do I rob a train?" And finally, the Edison company comes to the rescue and puts all of our greatest troubles and wonders at rest with this motion picture! Right in the decade when pictures began to magically move, thanks to science, this movie was released. It was silent, because the technology to record sound had not yet been created (stolen and commercialized) by the Edison company. So in theatres, a live pianist would be playing a live piano in front of the live audience to add flair to the not-so-live action on screen. Which makes sense, I mean, it's kind of uncomfortable just watching a bunch of silent guns go off and hearing the "tickatickatickatick" of the projector. But I must admit, this video becomes much more entertaining if you manage to play this video in a separate tab...
But then again, that song goes with literally every thing.
As I watched this, I was reminded of a little game I played, Runescape. Ever heard of it? Thousands of teenaged boys cry out in agony as they regret the mindless weeks they spent on that game. I, however, enjoyed the game. It's sort of medieval, I suppose, but there are pirates and monkeys, and ninjas, and robots, and robot zombies, and ninja monkeys, and zombie pirates, and ninja pirate zombies (seriously). I'm reminded of a little story called "The Great Brain Robbery", about an undead evil pirate, Rabid Jack, creating an army of bionic zombie pirates to rule the world. He creates his army by implanting the brains of monks from a little island into his undead minions to create an army of zombie-mechs with average-intelligence. It's a very, very serious plot.
But about this movie, at the end, do you see the man shooting his gun at the audience/camera? Just imagine, a room full of people who have never seen a movie before and are convinced that everything on the screen is actually happening. Now imagine showing somebody shoot a gun at them. I can imagine that pure hysteria was unloaded into the crowd, as people thought they were being really shot at.
It's like 3D, except, the third D is unnecessary because nobody knows the difference. I just thought that'd be an interesting thing to imagine.
Try your best to ignore the non canonical creepy music and enjoy this film. This is one of the first films ever, created by Georges Melies, back when movie editing was done by hand and good* ol' Thomas Edison had invented the first movie player. Melies is known for practically pioneering "special effects". It may look cheesy to us, with what we could call nowadays "poor quality effects". But considering the fact that we can have a movie like "Transformers" exist, where a giant robot that turns into a car beats up a robot that turns into a helicopter, and when you consider the fact that nobody is really phased by the reality that we can do that sort of thing, it isn't really fair to call this movie one of lower-quality. This guy, Melies, was a genius. When film first came out, a series of thousands of pictures on a strip, he was one of the first to realize you could edit the film to seemingly alter reality. In the beginning of the movie, some "wizards", I presume, turn little sticks and telescopes into chairs.
And that drove people nuts! It was ingenious! And then, they decide to go to the moon by building a big gun, and having some people sit inside a "bullet", then shooting at the moon.
We realize nowadays that, just as turning sticks into chairs on film is old-hat, that sitting inside a gun is not how you get to the moon. But at this point, nobody really thought too hard about doing that because, well... The moon is far away, it's science fiction to them.
I know you're in there, Bobby Goddard...
But anywho, while I watched this movie, I was instantly remembered of Dr Robert Goddard, the father of the rocket. Do you know how he imagined space travel would look like? He imagined it, as a young boy in 1899 before this movie was released, to be like it was pictured in this movie, and because of this image of being fired out of a gun into space in, he was inspired to later grow up and invent the rocket, conceptualize going to the moon and possibly planets, almost 50 years after his death reincarnating himself into the robotic dog of Jimmy Neutron under the admittedly conspicuous alias "Goddard", and thus carried on his legacy of space travel ingenuity via an emission of brainwaves of his hidden knowledge of rocketeering and space travel technology into the brain of Jimmy Neutron while he slept.
Okay, I may have made that part up. Maybe. But really, Georges started this whole "special effects" business, the field that I secretly want a job in. And while Georges was admittedly wrong about there being mushrooms on the moon, he was a genius and years ahead of his time.
And like all proper geniuses, he was a bit nutty. Here's a photo of the Melies family, guess which one is Georges.
Go ahead, guess.
He even played the air guitar before the electric guitar existed. Truly a marvel of a mind.
*Thomas Edison was probably not as nice of a genius as everyone thought, as revealed in the recent proTesla movement. See TheOatmeal. Discretion advised: True facts, innuendos, and vulgar language.
So did that offend you? Well honestly, I'd hope it did offend you at least a little bit, because nowadays people won't stand for anything like this. Times have changed in nearly 100 years, as we all know, but still, this happened, people got a kick out of it, and nobody thought anything of it. As I say this, I'll just let you know that I'm going to use the words "white" and "black" to describe the races. Because honestly... let's grow up a little, guys. It's terminology. We won't bother calling a white person by their European decent, and not everyone who is "black" is an African American. And while I honestly don't think of any humans as less than others in value, there's just so much drama surrounding these issues that I know I'll tick someone off for assuming I'm showing hostility. So, sorry if my use of these words in such a sensitive culture is offensive, but hey, at least I mean nothing by it.
The Black-Faced Minstrel shows were little comic sketches of white men/women (at first, because soon, black men and women became attracted to acting in them) who would paint their faces with black paint and act, um... According to exaggerated stereotypes of the 1920s for the black population. And honestly, nobody thought anything of it, not even the people they were making fun of! In fact, they liked it! Why? because they were included. They felt outcast once slavery was removed, sort of like half-citizens, so getting some sort of acknowledgement in the entertainment industry was a big encouragement to them.
Nowadays, people would throw things and break stuff once they saw this. But has it really disappeared? And are blacks the only targets? Well strangely, there's been somewhat of an odd reversal in some cases. But first, let's look at Die Antwoord. She's like Lady GaGa, but much less... Well... You wouldn't hear her songs on the pop radio station. One of her songs, "Fatty Boom Boom", has a music video in which she paints herself black and gives herself yellow eyes. Is she imitating black-faced minstrels, or a black cat? Honestly, I'm not at all sure.
But that's pretty terrifying. Perhaps there are still more remains of this satire? Perhaps it isn't always meant to be in insult? Perhaps it isn't always the blacks who are the targets? In my favorite, FAVORITE video game of all time, Team Fortress 2, there are nine playable characters, each one very unique and with a specific personality and distinct ethnicity. There's a young-aged Bostonian, a crazed American warhero wannabe, a mumbling and muffled pyromaniac in a gas-mask, a Scottish demolitions specialist with an alcohol problem that can only be described as stereotypically Scottish, a Russian heavyweight, an Australian bushman, a German medical practitioner who may or may not have had actual medical training, a Texan supergenius, and a French ladykiller. So... guess which one is black.
Well, as a little joke, they made the Scot the black one! Why? Because it is a part of their very stylistic humor. They mean nothing bad about it and they're never racist with it, but instead, they're breaking the stereotypes. Ever heard of a black Scotsman? Because not many other people have. In fact, only 0.16% of Scotland's population is black! Quite the minority! Here's a little video they released about the character. The TF2 developers are known for making little "Meet the ____" videos for each of their 9 characters (and one for a sandwich), so here's his. Discretion alert: he blows people up into cartoony bits, and swears once or twice.
So, in a way, they sort of did put a "black face" on a "white man". Scots aren't typically recognized as being black, and so, one could in fact argue that Tavish DeGroot (that's his name) is a minstrel of sorts! In the video, he gets bleeped out, but the line he says is "I'm a black, Scottish cyclops... They got more [censored content] monsters in the Loch Ness than they got the likes of me..." He's my favorite character to play as, by the way.
Black faced minstrels may be seen as rude and absurd, but little, milder versions of it exist today. Even white-faced minstrels are around, in a sort of manner! Steve Urkel from Family Matters could be portrayed as a white-faced minstrel, picking on the typical nerd which is usually associated with being white. And yet, he's a hit.
People are scared of opera. Really, they are. It's fancy, expensive, long, and to the typical modern man, it's hard to understand (like a hummer-limo). However, little do these anti-opera non-believers know... Opera is everywhere! Arguably the predecessor to absolutely every other kind of multimedia entertainment, it has its root in pretty much every mode of entertainment that people pay to see. Not only that, but opera is also alluded to much more than one might notice. One of the more recognizable ones is this...
Sound familiar? I would hope so, because it is all over the place. In the next video, I've discovered a playlist that, should you choose to watch in its entirety, contains many references to operas. But to start, I'd like to point out one particular video in the playlist that contains the above song. Ever seen "Up"?
Pixar recognizes the importance of Opera. They make many references to it, as one could imagine. And also, remember that Madam Butterfly song I posted a while ago? Well it's parodied in a commercial. The sadness and sorrow in the song is perfectly coupled alongside the products of a most unexpected company.
Not even cereal is safe! Keep your eyes and ears peeled, opera is integrated in the most unlikely of outlets, and if one looks and listens with avid ears, one can see these little intrusions in thousands of locations. It only seems fair. I mean, if opera started this all, the least we could do is to let it show up!
So i watched my first opera today, Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Or, "The Barber of Seville", if you don't know how to speak Italian. Ever hear someone imitate opera singing and go something like "Figaro! Figaro! Figaroooo!"? Well, yeah, that originated from this opera. Figaro is the name of the barber, and no, he isn't a barber like we have. Barbers back when this was composed, 1815, did normal barberish hair stuff, as well as medical practices, pulling teeth, and plumbing. And in that particular song of his, he's bragging about how famous and good at barbering he is, but keeps getting interrupted by people asking for his attention. He pretty much says "Oh, blah, all I ever hear is 'Figaro! Figaro! Figarooo! Figaroooooo!'" What I find interesting, though, is that Figaro (arguably) isn't even the main character! But without spoiling anything, he helps a guy do a thing to do something for a person because that person doesn't want that thing to be done by someone else.
Here's the link to the YouTube videos I watched (with subtitles, if you had trouble reading the title of the opera). Part I and II both add up to, roughly, two and a half hours, so if you wanna watch it... Sit tight.
I really enjoyed it all. It's actually pretty funny, too! I'm not sure if all the people in the audience spoke Italian, or if there was some sort of translation available to them, because they all laughed at the right times. The opera contains some "breaking of the fourth wall", which I found interesting. Oh, speaking of "the fourth wall", most people use that phrase without really knowing what it means! People usually associate that phrase with when a character becomes self-aware, and realizes they're fictional and being observed by an audience. (When a character realizes they aren't being observed by anyone, we don't know what to call it, because we've never observed someone not being observed.) And while that technically is true, I even used it in my previous post, the fourth wall is best, and most accurately, described as the separation between characters and audiences. It can be spacial or physical, like when the president holds a conference on television. He's raised behind a podium, usually, so the fourth wall is that abstract space of characteristic that makes him different from the audience. Or if you're watching on television, the television screen is the fourth wall, because it separates the performer (Mr.O) from the audience (America, or really anyone with access to Fox News) for safety reasons, and for emphasis.
But it was intriguing, in content. I liked the story a ton, and it made it that much easier to appreciate this...
In this video, I felt a strange, unsettling air in the very first second. Something didn't feel right. The ambiance, song, stiff movements, saturated colors all were very foreboding.. And for good reason.
As the animation comes to an end, we are forced to see the joy of Madame Butterfly, her hope for the American Sailor, and the child growing up. However, instead of the happy, joyous reversal we are built up to have, we see the man taking away the child to be with him and his wife. It is saddening and disturbing to see the child torn away from their umbilical cord into the mother, symbolizing that the father did more than just take her child. He took away a part of her. Something so close and dear to her that it became a part of her. It brought her joy, and he ripped it out as his to take.
Soon after, Madame Butterfly breaks the fourth wall. Aware of her doll-like nature, she runs out of the set and begins to destroy herself. She removes her outer flesh and skin, bearing her metal frame, in her humility, totally exposed. She takes herself apart, completing the self-destruction incited by her lover. Then, reduced to a heap of metal and a screw, she unplugs the light next to her, to waste away in silence and solace.
I was disturbed at the imagery, and mortality bore its ugly nature.
The renaissance era is very popular for being... there. I mean, who hasn't heard of it? After the Moors invaded Spain, with their Roman and Greek books, all kinds of technology and practices were reinvented. Perspective, what an arch was, how to manipulate technology for the sake of entertainment, how to make better art, and all sorts of information. However, most people can point out "Oh, that's a renaissance artwork" simply by the style of a painting, or a dress, or a building. What they don't realize, however, is that more things are influenced by the great revival than one might think.
Fireworks? Yeah, those came from the renaissance era.
Garden mazes? Those, too.
Flower arranging, and pretty much every movie, in general, all birthed from operas and plays. However, they didn't have "renaissance festivals", they just had... festivals.
Play as Ezio Auditore, the Italian assassin in Assassin's Creed 2, and play a role in the renaissance, itself!
But that's all just information, so how about some actual examples? Well, there was that one Reebok ad, featuring a girl running, and the Zephyrs from Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" blowing poofs of air to give a runner a boost, and to pretty much signify that "If you wear Reebok shoes, you will feel like the goddess of beauty."
Speaking of the Birth of Venus, one of my favorite video games, and one of the most influential video games of all time, Portal, uses that painting as a reference for creating the model of the main antagonist. <Spoilers ahead, by the way>
This is GLaDOS, she hangs from the ceiling.
In portal, a large female robot is given synthetic intelligence and decision making to test out the theory of artificial immortality by being given "personality discs" of the deceased. She at first is beautiful, a brilliant marvel of science, but in thanks and awareness of her superiority, she quickly kills off the humans working in the institution that created her. The developers of the game wanted to make the reference to Venus, as a beautiful creation and symbol of power, by flipping everything upside down. Literally and figuratively. The origin for the model for this robot, GLaDOS (Genetic Life and Disc Operating System), was revealed by the developers, to be the painting of The Birth of Venus. All they did was flip her upside down, and then go from there.
To the left is Venus, goddess of beauty. To the right is an inverted GLaDOS, not a goddess.
GLaDOS is a symbol of power, and with deceptively friendly and beautiful curves and rounded edges, she is anything but beautiful on the inside, as she attempts - hundreds of times - to discreetly murder the player, by placing said player through dozens of dozens of little courses and life-threatening scenarios, leading you in the wrong direction at every chance, and insulting you.
The renaissance is everywhere, I assure you, but I know only so much.
In this video, Raul Cuero reflects, in an interview, on his life as a poor Colombian, and how it influenced and inspired him to become the microbiology icon that he is, today. Training himself to entertain himself through thought, he would observe cockroaches on the ground (how any human can make eye contact with those things and not implode is beyond me), how they interact in pairs and how they behave. This instilled in him a curiosity and intimacy with the attitudes and nature of creation, and created the basis for his love of microbiology.
In one point in the video, he says that creativity isn't about artistic ability, that it isn't about intellect. It's about how we perceive creation, and our willingness to assist it. I, personally, would count someone's "smartness" not on their test grades, not on their note-taking, and not on their essay skills. While many people I consider "smart" do often possess these three things and more, I find it is more about their creativity.
What good is knowledge, if you don't use it in practice? You can recreate experiments, know the ins-and-outs of history, but knowing means nothing if you don't use it to affect other things. I suppose I am a little bit biased, being of an artistic and creative mindset, but everything I make is made from altering what I've seen, heard, felt, touched, and tasted, into something that instills similar sensations in others.
Think of the smartest person in history you know. Leonardo, Alexander, Professor Xavier, and think. Are they considered smart because they knew things? They knew many things, of course, and so have billions of others before them! But the difference is, they used what they knew to make more things to assist creation. Leonardo Da Vinci, in studying human bodies, anatomy, math, science, philosophy, applied his knowledge to conceptualize one of the first flying machines. Alexander the Great, very knowledgeable in many social, economic, historic, militaristic, and egotistic backgrounds, helped foster what is possibly the greatest empire in existence. Professor Xavier, a crippled psychic with immense knowledge and wisdom, gathered many mutants together like him and taught them, housed them, and assembled them for their good, and for the greater good.
He even made himself appear to the Xmen after he died, he was that good.
Knowing things doesn't benefit anyone except yourself. Applying it all to benefit others is real intelligence, because the intelligent know that doing anything else is selfish.
Saying artistic talent is not a component of creativity, I feel, is correct. It goes the other way, of course, but artistry doesn't bind creativity. Plus, "art" itself doesn't really have a definition, anyway. But if you wanna go ahead and take a shot at defining art, then... good luck.
Today was my first day of classes in a college setting, and I am pleased to say - without the intention of kissing up - that the class of Art and Technology will be one of my most interesting ones. While the course is described as rigorous, informative, and relatively fast paced, it was pleasantly surprising to find adventure and eagerness brimming from the course. As Prof. Echeverry introduced and spoke with us, the information being spoken was breathtaking in volume.
I personally, as much of a fan of creating as I am in weakness to writing, received my first indication that the class would be a great one when there was but one single paper listed on the syllabus. But as we continued down the extensive, extensive list of subject matters, my eyes began to bug. Not in fear, but in excitement! Admittedly, I am a huge nerd when it comes to learning. I love to learn. It makes me happy, energetic, and gives me excitement. The lesson today on the forefather of technology, theatre, had me on edge and fully attentive for the whole almost two hours of content. Note taking became less of a task, and more of a desire. The information being presented was oh so engaging, there was so much in it, and it was wonderful.
My first impressions on the class are very promising, with projects very different from the typical, perhaps stereotypical collegiate [whatever number] page paper. We would construct collagaes with xerox copies of our body parts! We would create a flip-book, put on an art performance (which I am actually a bit intimidated by), translate an opera of our choice into a video game, and others of the like.
When we think of "Multimedia", what comes to mind? MP3s and music videos are common answers, and aren't technically incorrect, but they don't go as deeply into describing it as one could go.
The very vague, and at first confusing, sort of "rough nature" of multimedia we were provided with, is...
"A series of time controlling tools working in synergy."
To explain this concept, Professor Echeverry took a spray bottle of some kind of aerosol sanitizer, and while motionless, it was not multimedia, despite having being made of multiple mechanisms. It did, however, become a multimedia object once he began to spray it about the room. It's all about time.
Multimedia (in layman's, commonheaded, boring terms) is easily described as an art that changes.
To reinforce this idea, one could look at the works of Juan Carlos Delgado (a link to an article about him is provided in the caption of the picture, brought to you by the ever elusive creation of the Spaniards, Spanish). A work of his is a room with a few objects, but let's focus on this bronze bust of a girl in a refrigerated room. At first, this does not seems very interesting. But as the time controlling tools of refrigeration magic begin to take place, the art begins to change. Humidity begins to freeze and condense onto the statue, as bronze is an excellent conductor of heat and chill (which is pretty much the absence of heat, because nothing can conduct cold). As people walk in, their breaths and body heat manage to slightly, slightly melt the ice collecting on it, and their breaths and perspiration give off water into the air. This slightly alters the condensing process, and throws a ton of variables in the mix, creating unique patterns and small deviations in ice crystal formations on the statue. These deviations multiply and grow exponentially in significance over time, and as the ice stacks and stacks over a period of days, it snows-over into a dazzling array of detail, completely covering the statue.
See? Time, tools, and synergy. The refrigeration system and the people were the tools (no offence), and the condensation provided the synergy and interaction between the bust, the vapor in the air, the people, and the cold. This struck me as absolute genius, and for a brief moment, I had one of those moments of "Ah! Why didn't i think of that?"
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