Renaissance Today: The revival of the revival

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.

Raul Cuero: Master at Studying Itty Bitty Things

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.

Day 1

Hello, world!

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. 

Multimedia

Click here to see the transformation!

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?"