Showing posts with label Banksy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Banksy. Show all posts

Saturday, November 16, 2013

16/11/2013: WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences & zero economics

This is WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics. Enjoy!


In recent WLASze (http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/11/2112013-wlasze-weekend-links-on-arts.html), I wrote about the IBM's Watson super computer pushing out the limits of AI by getting into the areas of 'computational creativity' - not quite human creativity, but still… Here's an MIT Technology Review take on the same http://www.technologyreview.com/view/521596/the-secret-ingredient-in-computational-creativity/

Ages ago I used to do some work trying to figure out what exactly Waston's capabilities can be used for (http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2011/02/13022011-what-jeopardy-champ-can-do-in.html). As I found out, the bounds to computation are that computation is bounded - in other words, computational systems are still based on continued iterations of pre-set space of data. Computers lack the power of creation no matter how much power of combination is granted to them.

Thus, culinary exploits of a computer are fun and good, bye more important question, however, remains the same as before: what is creativity in the first place… The real breakthrough for the AI will arrive when computers start asking that, rather than answer reducible problems of matching traits to combinations of various substances.


Now, let me see… here's an example. "Legacy Machine N°1 was conceived when Maximilian Büsser started fantasising: "What would have happened if I had been born in 1867 instead of 1967? In the early 1900s the first wristwatches appear and I would want to create three-dimensional machines for the wrist, but there are no Grendizers, Star Wars or fighter jets for my inspiration. But I do have pocket watches, the Eiffel Tower and Jules Verne, so what might my 1911 machine look like? It has to be round and it has to be three-dimensional: Legacy Machine N°1 was my answer."" Take a look
http://www.mbandf.com/machines/legacy-machines/lm1/#/about

Of course, you might say that there is reductionism going on here: the author took specific time periods hallmarks and reduced them to physical design semiotics, to graphic and industrial markers. The issue, however, is that both the inputs and outputs were qualitative, not quantifiable, in their very nature. And as a result, translation from inputs to outputs required much more than an algorithmic search-and-match, but an aesthetic narrative, leap of faith, belief, discontinuity.


Non-reducibility of art follows across both the creative dimension and descriptive compositions. Example: John Pawson's minimal St Moritz Church photographed during a choir rehearsal:
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/15/st-moritz-church-john-pawson-photography-hufton-crow/



The point of this is that with true art, one does not really know where the creation ends or begins. One can have reference points or interpretative meanings assigned to work, but one cannot have re-traceable deterministic path from a work of art back to the points of data origination that inform that work. In the case of AI - one can and indeed the record of the pathway exists.


In mathematics, this goes to the heart of the nature of countability, infinity and infinite sets. Mathematics distinguishes different degrees of infinity - something unique to the subject. Artists inhabit the world that allows for them. Computers, however, are able to function only in the world with countably infinite systems in them. Here's a quick and dirty article on the difference in sizes of various infinite sets: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-infinity-comes-in-different-sizes and more entertaining version: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128231.400-ultimate-logic-to-infinity-and-beyond.html#.UoeJ3JRHBF8

Let me add that if you extend the above argument to include power sets, then the set of possible infinities becomes infinite itself and the size of possible infinities becomes infinite.


Amazing beauty of juxtaposition: content vs context in Max Sher's photographs. See series Amerika:


Russian Palimpsest:

Your spring will never end:


I Will Drink To Your Decline:


See more at http://maxsher.com/work


How fast does the Earth rotate? Geeky answer to a child-like innocence of the question: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970401c.html but someone, please tell NASA that designing a website can be… oh… so exciting… (as opposed to simply plugging text into a tabulated space presented like some sort of a proto-socialist elections leaflet asking you to support your only candidate choice from your only political party…


And just to keep track of the past propaganda the WLASze unleashed on you, here's a WSJ article on the Detroit revivalist design shop Shinola:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303618904579169660144850526
I love these guys and has covered them in WLASze: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/11/10122013-wlasze-weekend-links-on-arts.html What an awesome merger of design, tradition, and sentimental wealth of Detroit…


And another self-referential note. Readers of the WLASze know I have been critical of Banksy's foray into NYC with 'artist in residence' concept. I love, this, however: http://www.foodrepublic.com/2013/10/11/banksys-latest-nyc-art-installation-takes-aim-slau?utm_source=outbrain.com&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=CPC What an awesomely invasive push through the urban mindscape.


It's "Sirens of the Lambs"… pitch-perfect…


The latest in pre-apocalyptic disaster-state living schematise is upon us, courtesy of a student's warped (vino? or "…two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can," as Hunter S. Thompson defined a perfect condition for tripping out of space) imagination and via Woldless Tech (the place where Big=Great and Invasive=Sensitive): http://wordlesstech.com/2013/11/07/amazing-eco-friendly-walking-metropolis/
"An amazing eco-friendly walking metropolis" that is actually non-amazing (beyond the scale) not eco-friendly non-metropolis:



But, to be fair to the WorldlessTech, they have some actual pearls: http://wordlesstech.com/2013/10/30/famous-logos-communist-regimes/. The humour is spot on most of the time…


This alone is worth coming back to the site…


And for the last bit… an absolutely stunning project via Bot & Dolly here: http://www.botndolly.com/box
A live performance exploring "the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping onto moving surfaces". WATCH IT! From the Box to Levitation to Intersection to Teleportation to Escape…

Enjoy!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

12/10/2013: WLASze Part 2: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

My first WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics focused on sciences, so now is the time to switch over to the other side: arts.

Enjoy.


SaatchiOnline is profiling an excellent new talent: Jessica Kirkpatric
http://www.saatchionline.com/profile/153958


Superbly technical work merging compositional competence, deconstructing and altering the reality to create new representations of space and objects. Almost story-telling like quality of change in subtextual.


Hockneyesque geometry of inanimate spaces meets Dutch masters-evoking colour and light tonalities?..


On a similar note of space and emptiness, but with much more distilled sense of void and air, and more direct colours: Matt Phillips' work:
http://www.theartcollective.com/artists/matt-phillips/


Technically more devolutionary than Kirkpatric's work, and very different compositionally and tonally, but still, to me - very proximate in overall semiotics of space and geometry's dominance over the landscape.


And for a light-hearted moment to rest on:

Via M&C Saatchi Milan: video http://www.mcsaatchi-milano.com/
Full project here: http://www.protectyourlife.it/


MART of Bolzano, Italy is co-hosting a retrospective of Fortunato Depero's work in Barcelona: http://www.mart.tn.it/mostre.jsp?ID_LINK=682&area=137&id_context=4312
Depero is one of the core masters of Futurismo - a powerful pre-cursor to much of the modern art that emerged in the 20th century. Here's one his graphic design examples:


And another one - still alive today (actually MrsG has couple bottles still in the fridge…)

More classic work:



Beautiful example of architecture organically included in the landscape without the need to camouflage the building:
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/10/08/holiday-house-vindo%CC%88-by-stromma-projekt/


The point of the house geometry is to stretch the space along the horizontal lines to subtly position it within the vertical space of the forest and to float it above the rock formation. I love the simple elegance of devoting the view to the forest, and air and light flow of the house. It is elegant precisely because it strikes the balance between being organic to the site, yet not having to be obscure. Reminds me of the classic 'dacha' elegance of the old summer houses in Russia.


From strong imagery to weak content: as the BusinessInsider review aptly puts it, "Banksy's oeuvre has ceased to be groundbreaking or unique".
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/acclaimed-street-artist-banksy-has-completely-run-out-of-things-to-say-2013-10#ixzz2hFgN5837
Favourite quote: "His stale images of monkeys, gas masks, bobbies, shopping carts, and rats are now so ubiquitous they've lost all meaning.  Similarly, his medium of public graffiti no longer carries any significant risk since his brand of 'vandalism' is widely applauded and serves to actually increase property values.  ... Banksy's popularity endures simply because he's preaching to the choir."

Boom! Exploded. My personal view - the more I think, the more I agree with the reviewer. An artist cannot be simply tied to the audience nor can the artist be defined to be just a rubble-rouser. The artist must create the audience. Joseph Brodsky said that poetry is the process of creating an alternative world. In contrast, Banksy is simply depicting the perceived world of his audience. That is equivalent to taking endless pictures of ones' self reflected in the mirror and posting them all over the public domain… tedious even for a Flickr amateur…


To round off on a positive note… Russian Aeroflot launched a new 'budget' airline, called Dobrolet. Dobrolet comes with a hugely important brand name pedigree in art, being a trade name of the airline that once flew back in the 1920s as the precursor to Aerflot… Here are some images from Dobrolet graphic designs by Alexander Rodchenko:






For those unfamiliar with Rodchenko's work:
http://theartstack.com/artists/alexander-rodchenko
http://theartstack.com/artists/alexander-rodchenko-1


And for a smile… with some serious side to it too:
http://the-dimka.livejournal.com/6645.html
Just read the description and enjoy… H/T to MrsG.