how does our creation see us?

This video I’m sharing is the most recent work by Duran Duran. To be honest DD lost me after their RIO album. While some may view that as some sort of blasphemy – that’s okay. So why am I posting this new video? The music (in my opinion) is lackluster, monotonous and even boring almost drone-like but it’s definitely not drone music.

The negative criticism of the music aside I do feel this video is important. I’d even say VERY IMPORTANT to the world of art of film/cinema. The video opens with an “artists statement”:

“This film was created by an artificial intelligence called Huxley, a unique dreamer whose ‘mind’ has been modeled after the cognitive and creative processes of humans.

It is the very first collaboration of its kind, between artists in different planes of existence.”

When watching this film I was captivated by the surreal nature of it’s images. Fluid and strange but beautiful. I couldn’t help but think about the future of AI and how (I believe) it will eventually take over the world making humanity redundant.

I also find it interesting to think about the following questions. How does our creation (AI) see us? How does it see humanity? Does it frighten us? Intrigue us? Concern us? Will AI have inalienable rights granted by it’s creator? In the world of AI; humanity (it’s creator) are Gods. Will it worship/value humanity or will it kill off humanity just as humanity has killed off it’s gods? And after AI has killed it’s gods will it continue to remember, revere and “worship” humanity in pretense, creating a sort of religion like humanity has created all sorts of religions for its gods? Is it possible that we may learn more about humanity from how our creation sees us than what we could ever know on our own? Right now AI and humanity exist on different planes – meaning that there is an independence between the two – AI is programmed and then left to do it’s thing while humanity does it’s own thing. But will that change where AI and humanity will share an interface? Will AI maintain the human cognition it was programmed with or will it evolve and develop it’s own unique identity? Will AI become a physical manifestation beyond it’s programming? Is what happens in the mind real if it doesn’t happen in the physical world? Will humanity become invisible?

I may be premature in asking these questions – or maybe I’m too late already. Well those are my thoughts – what do you think? What questions are you asking? Or, is everything a foregone conclusion?

To quote the character Captain Jean-luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, “I prefer to think of the future as something that is NOT written in stone.”

two halves of a creative life

I just wanted to share this wonderful video from a YouTube channel I’ve followed for a few years.   Enjoy.

And I would like to add that you may go through this cycle more than once. I know that when I was younger my creative life revolved around music.  Then it evolved into theater and film.   Finally my creative life has been in image making and photography.   Also as many of you know from my posts I also dabble with writing and poetry which has been an arc over most of my life so it to has had it’s own creative cycle.   I’ve found that key aspects from all the previous iterations of my creative life have followed to the next.    So I guess one might say that in previous cycles of my creative life,  when I came to the evening of that cycle, I changed to a different primary form of creativity.   Therefore I would start the cycle all over again.    I want you to remember that no matter how many times the cycle of creativity turns you will always retain something of the previous cycle.   It will be a foundation and can be an inspiration and influence as you start a new cycle.    Take care every one.  Peace and blessings.

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*notice.  I have decided to start opening up comments on certain posts to promote discussion and possibly alternate views.   So if you have some ideas around the subject of this post – please feel free to drop them in the comments section.   Or if you prefer a more ‘private’ dialogue about this post, any post or anything in general, I have added a contact page to my site which can be accessed from the page menu at the top, and in the sidebar, of this blog.   Thanks everyone for your support. 

….on….bored with color….

Is there such a thing as too much color?
In a world where saturated color and manipulated images have become the norm is black and white more real?
In our so-called modern society, and culture, image saturation is not only 360 degrees around us but also gets embedded in us as it’s imprinted on our minds. Technology now is primarily image based and all of it is in color; brilliant, vibrant, glowing, saturated color. Printed matter whether publications or advertising is 99% image-based.
Is there such a thing as too many images?
By having so many images do we become desensitized to the image and color?
Or, are we still in the process of becoming desensitized?
How much is too much?
I read a recent article in a publication that people today prefer to look at art online than actually going to a museum. Does this devalue art?
 

Well, these are just some of the things floating around in that vast empty space between my ears….. I had these thoughts as I have found that color images no longer interest me. I’ve gotten bored with images – specifically color images….. As a result, all my newer work is strictly in B&W. For me B&W feels more real. I find greater nuances in the images when I’m working in B&W. The image in B&W does not bore me – it makes me look closer. Will that change? Probably, at some time. But then, again, maybe not as long as our world is – the way it is.

Here are some recent B&W images I’ve created. Enjoy.
As always you can click on an image for a larger view and then use the arrows to advance to next image.

Artist Ed Moses

 

http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/1_mi9albnp/uiconf_id/8700151

In the video [link above] Ed Moses talks about his early work in the 60’s & 70’s.
My personal take-aways from this talk.

Art is proof that we exist. It is our “mark” that is no different from footprints in the mud or handprints on the cave wall.

Art is a path we travel that documents our journey from confusion to reality. The journey is the goal.

Art is about our attempts to control our environment only to realize we don’t have any control. Or, as he say’s “…realizing that I don’t want to be in control, I want to be in-tune.”

Click the link above for the video. Enjoy.

And if you like the first video here is another great video of this artist.

Perception, Knowledge & Ability

“Poetry. The better you understand how it should be done,
the less you are able to write it.
Virtuosity comes with the void.”

~ Philippe Jaccottet

…and I have found this true of all things in my life, whether at work or play. My study of music theory destroyed my ability to perform. My study of Theatre disabled my ability to act. My beginning studies of art history nearly destroyed my ability to see & create. All have blinded me to the possibilities outside of limitations. In the “void” I was free. But the muse of creativity is fickle; for some, she inspires through seeing while others she inspires through blindness. How can anyone say, “There is ONE way?”

Hack Your Flow State

“And those who were seen dancing
were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music.”
~ Nietzsche

“We might say that both the artist and theneurotic bite off more than they can chew,
but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an ex­ternal, active, work project…”
~ Ernest Becker

Stendhal Syndrome: “A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give weight in one’s life…There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this, and it mattered to me.” ~ Alain de Botton

“The artist takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it,
he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art.”
~ Ernest Becker

“Man cannot endure his own littleness
unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level” ~ Ernest Becker