Atheistic world view

We're ultimately as purposeless as the very process which brought us into existence. Life's just an accident and so are you.

You can find short term reasons for living like you're here because your parents wanted to have children, etc., but ultimately you're just an accident and so are your parents. Life is one big accident.

You serve no purpose, you'll cause no lasting effect, and in the grand scheme of things your life is utterly meaningless. Without a Creator in the beginning, there was nobody around to put you here on purpose which means you aren't here for a reason.

It's that simple.

Our worth is ultimately subjective. You might think you're worth something but someone else might think you're worthless, and as long as there's no transcendent Assessor to have the final say, no one's ultimately right or wrong.

You don't actually have a right to live; you just prefer not to die. Someone else on the other hand might want to kill you regardless of how you feel about it, and who is to say that they're wrong? In the absence of absolute morality, power reigns supreme; the strong survive and the weak get exploited.

Free Will?

Watched this movie simply because i was interested in rotoscoping. I found this idea really interesting READ IT!!
Script of the movie Waking Life, based on Tara Carreon's transcription

(Philosopher professor talking in his office - University of Texas: Austin philosophy professor David Sosa)

"In a way, in our contemporary world view, it's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will. This problem has been around for a long time, since before Aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, these guys all worried about how we can be free if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws, and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world. Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too, right? We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether its God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you're gonna do or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom.

So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, or you can only be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those - every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on.

So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic." And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving.

So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons with all that that entails; not just bodies, but persons. And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality."

Good discussion on this topic here

I read this article on Hard determinism. Links to the idea of Free will and physics introduced in the previous excerpt. DNA, besides shaping our morphology, contributes greatly to our personality and behavior. Many scientists claim to have overwhelming evidence that the genetic code predetermines human aspects, from habits to likes and dislikes. If this is found to be true, then the case for determinism grows with every advance in this area of research-humans have no choice in their lives but to live as biologically motivated beings limited by what DNA spells out for their lives.

Eye Tracking

Eye tracking measures the movement of your eye and the point of gaze relative to your head. There is technology available that can track your eye movements using a camera through a computer. This is used in psychology, and for market research and to determine which layouts and designs for web pages attract more views and hold people's attention for longer.
EyeTracking is able to deliver accurate statistics on where and how people are looking at dynamic media. Applications include in-game advertising effectiveness, TV commercial evaluation, and sporting event sponsorship measurement. Information delivered shows not just that an ad appeared on screen (‘air-time’) but actually answers the real question of – “how many people actually saw my ad?”

Some problems with the accuracy and relevance of the results from the eye tracking studies are the knowledge the person has before had, or if they have been asked to complete a specific task when looking at the images.

In this example, the Russian psychologist Yarbus who was studying eye movements of people in the 1950's and 60's discovered that if the viewer is asked a specific question then their eyes concentrate on that part of the image, and that when observing a face your gaze tends to jump between the mouth and eyes.

Found a site that uses the eye tracking progam to generate painterly looking pictures from photographs. The pieces of the picture that you look at more appear to be more in focus, see pictures below.









The white circles on the first picture shows where the gaze of the eye was fixed, and the size of the circle indicates the duration of fixation (The scale on the bottom left corner of the first picture is one second). Interesting that the points you focus on become the only points in focus. I would love to use this eye tracking program to draw with, or to do some sort of social experiment or a work that people could interact with.

Colour Perception & Theory

Looking at illusions involved with colour such as the same colour illusion shown above. Squares A and B appear to be different shades of grey but in the second picture the line joining them shows them to be the same. Very interested in illusions and how perceptions of a colour vary from person to person.

I've been looking at how we percieve colours, colour blindness etc and found out that women percieve a broader spectrum of colour in the red orange range, and that men are more likely to be colour blind. This is because Women have two X-chromosomes; men have only one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome. Because this color vision gene resides on the X-chromosome, rare detrimental changes at this gene cause color-blindness in males, whereas females are likely to have at least one good copy of the gene. Yay.


Looked at Goethean Science, and his approach to colour theory. It was dismissed in his time in favour of Newton's particle theories on light because Goethe's approach to science was intuitive rather than rationalistic but now has been given the credit it deserves. His theory that light was a wave ost out to Newtons particle theory but now we know that both are true... remember the experiments from 7th form physics, light has both particle and wave properties.

The above diagram shows light and dark spectra – when the coloured edges overlap in a light spectrum, green results; when they overlap in a dark spectrum, magenta results.

Chaos

The image above was made using the chaoscope program. It doesn't render very nicely but you get an idea of what can be achieved with it. I like the random appearance of the strange attractors and the fact that they were made using a mathematical formula. Spanish Artist Elena Asins uses this approach with her work to create.... She is a pioneer in applying structuralism and computing to art. KA PAI.

Chaos has a sensitive dependence on initial conditions. It's found in flowing water, the stock market, celestial orbits, coastlines, weather...almost anything that's difficult to predict. What these systems have in common is that in order to know what will happen in the future, we need to know everything about the present with absolute precision.

Chaos is everywhere in nature, but it was a surprising discovery that it also appears in simple systems of equations . You can read a very mathematical definition here

Marcos Novak

Liquid architectures. Really good article here.
"I became curious about living
membranes and skins as architecture. Modelled on the
structure of the skeleton and the circulatory and nervous systems, most architecture is based on hierarchies of lines leading to nodes, a system which is ill-suited to provide ubiquitous services".
The image to the right shows some of his work concerning echinoderms and exoskeletons.
echinoderms are simple animals lacking brains and complex sensing organs, they also have a radial symmetry instead of bilateral like humans and mammals.


I like how he has made alien looking shapes based on organic creatures. His work looks futuristic and i love the 3D shapes that look random but aren't.

Greg Niemeyer+ Chris Chafe

An animation showing the levels of CO2 over the course of a day at a conference the artist attended. Greg studied classics and photography in Switzerland and he is now a digital artist. He wants to enhance human experience through his use of technology in his works. I don't like his photography i think it looks pretty amateur in comparison to his digital works. He likes to juxtapose the concepts of technology and nature.see video of CO2 levels here

I have been looking at this a bit through fractals and divine proportion occurring in nature, maths found in nature etc and mathematical properties of nature. If possible i would like to juxtapose concepts of mathematical equations modeling nature and naturally occurring phenomena. Looking at the chaos theory (which i know i very limited amount about), i find the concept intriguing that in theory an equation could be made to predict the weather, it makes me think that there must be an equation for everything, that everything can be pre-determined like fate.
He works a lot in collaboration with Chris Chafe, who uses the computer to aide and enhance his musical performances.
Greg Niemeyer has done research for new sound synthesis based on physics models of mechanics in musical instruments.
I would like to use some element of physics in my work, something to do with light or sound waves and exploring their properties through an interactive installation.

From Spark to Pixel- Artist Research

Erwin Redl
beautiful works using lights, installations using LED's. Some are huge e.g.' Fade III', a computer controlled out-door LED installation made in 2005 measures 50x80ft and looks amazing. Pictured on the right is 'Matrix II' made in 2005.


Shiro Takatani
Soundscapes with Rei Harakami. Really floaty and dream like...
YouTube - taicoclub-REI HARAKAMI


Danish artist Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967, Copenhagen) is internationally known for his works with light and other natural phenomena. His installations are often experimental, laboratory-like, aiming to provoke visitors to reflect upon their own processes of perception and the discrepancy between knowledge conveyed and knowledge produced by real experience. The subject of colour perception is of particular interest to Eliasson, in particular the mediation or experience of colour in space. At Ikon, Eliasson proposes to create a self-contained sculptural environment in which a colour matching laboratory is created exploring variations in human colour perception.
Check out his site

Olafur Eliasson

Technology in Early Cinema

Zoetrope
'Thaumatrope' - a small disc held by pieces of string. One either side of the disc was drawn and image which seemed to superimpose onto each other when the disc was spun. The invention of this device is often credited to astronomer Sir John Herschel but it was well known London Physicist Dr. Paris who made it popular.

In 1834, William George Horner proposed a more convenient device based on Plateau’s Phenakistoscope which eliminated the need fod for a mirror allowed several people to view the device at one time.

Horner’s idea was to take shape in the form of drum with an open top into which was placed a hand drawn sequence of pictures on a strip of paper. The pictures were placed around the inside of the edge of the drum and could be viewed through the outside of the drum.
The images gave the illusion of movement as the drum was spun. Horner referred to his device as his Daedalum.

"zoopraxiscope". Patented in 1867 by William Lincoln, moving drawings or photographs were watched through a slit in the zoopraxiscope. Modern motion picture making began with the invention of the motion picture camera.


Praxinoscope

The Praxinoscope was the result of work carried out by Frenchman Emile Reynaud. Using a drum design which revolved, as with the Zoetrope, the images were viewed reflected in a prism of mirrors which rose from the centre of the drum. Each mirror as it passed flashed a clear image opposed to it. The result was perfect animation without the loss of luminosity in movement which was experienced with the Zoetrope.

The replacement of the opaque drawings with transparent drawings meant that light could be shone through them. The light which shone through the pictures was reflected by the mirror prism and focused onto a screen through a lens.

Reynaud devised a method of painting a series of pictures on small glass plates which were joined together in a single flexible strip. The animated characters were projected onto a screen from behind.He exhibited his projecting Praxinoscope giving public performances using long broad strips of hand painted frames.
The effect he achieved was successful but was jerky and slow. In addition the labour required to draw the strips meant that Reynaud’s films could not easily be reproduced. His invention would have benefited greatly from the use of photography.

Thomas A. Edison

Most of the experimentation and research was carried out by Edison’s assistant, Dickson, with early experiments employing techniques developed with the phonograph. These involved arranging rows of tiny photographs on the outside of a cylinder with a light, or igniting sparks inside. Experiments using this idea as a starting point continued for some years.

This, a peepshow device which required viewers to peer into the top of a large cabinet where they would be treated to a minute or so of moving pictures. The first Kinetoscope prototype was ready by May 20th 1891.

In October of 1890, one of Edison’s laboratory workers Sacco Albanese was the subject for the first film to employ the cylinder method. The so called “Monkeyshines” clearly displayed the limitations of this method of presentation as viewing required huge monocular magnification, and even then the images would appear impossibly grainy. As a result, the cylinder method was abandoned in favour of film.

One of the first films made for the Kinetoscope and copyrighted by Dickson was the now legendary “Record of a Sneeze” made in early January 1894. The subject of this film was one Fred Ott and each individual frame showing his antics were recorded on paper with its own number and sent, on January 7th to the Library of Congress for copyright.

The Latham’s saw the possibilities in recording prize-fights which were against the law in many states and such fights became popular with Kinetoscope viewers. The first foreign Kinetoscope Parlour opened on October 7th 1894 at 70 Oxford Street in London but by the end of 1894 the Kinetoscope craze was dying down and Edison’s failure to patent the Kinetoscope properly meant his developments were much copied. In December of 1895, Thomas Armat demonstrated his projecting Phantoscope to entrepreneurs Raff and Gammon, who in turn approached Edison with a view to developing.

Edison, who had seen his peephole Kinetoscope losing popularity to other motion picture projecting devices such as the Lumière brother’s Cinématographe agreed renaming the Phantoscope the Vitascope and marketing under the banner “Edison’s Vitascope”. At a demonstration of the Vitascope Edison played the role of its inventor convincingly well.

Lumiere Brothers

The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis were both technically minded and excelled in science subjects and were sent to Technical School.

Antoine set up a business manufacturing and supplying photographic equipment. Joining him in this venture was Louis who began experimenting with the photographic equipment his father was manufacturing.

He developed a new 'dry plate' process in 1881 at the age of seventeen, it became known as the 'Etiquette Bleue' process and gave his father’s business a welcome boost, and a factory was built soon after to manufacture the plates in the Monplaisir quarter of the Lyons Suburbs. This was a big development in photography.

Antoine was invited to a demonstration of Edison’s Peephole Kinetoscope in Paris. He was excited by what he saw and returned to Lyons. He presented his son Louis with a piece of Kinetoscope film, a prototype which in today's money would have cost more then $1million, given to him by one of Edison’s concessionaires and said, "This is what you have to make, because Edison sells this at crazy prices and the concessionaires are trying to make films here in France to have them cheaper".

They identified two main problems with Edison’s device: its bulk - the Kinetograph - the camera, was a colossal piece of machinery and its weight and size resigned it to the studio. Secondly - the nature of the kinetoscope - the viewer, meant that only one person could experience the films at a time.

By early 1895, the brothers had invented their own device combining camera with printer and projector and called it the Cinématographe. Patenting it on February 13th 1895, the Cinématographe was much smaller than Edison’s Kinetograph, was lightweight (around five kilograms), and was hand cranked. The Lumières used a film speed of 16 frames per second, much slower compared with Edison’s 48 fps - this meant that less film was used an also the clatter and grinding associated with Edison’s device was reduced.

The first of such screenings occurred on 22nd March 1895 at 44 Rue de Rennes in Paris at an industrial meeting where a film especially for the occasion, Workers leaving the Lumière factory, was shown.

Louis photographed the world around him and some of his first films were 'actuality' films, like the workers leaving his father's factory. The brothers began to open theatres to show their films (which became known as cinemas). In the first four months of 1896 they had opened Cinématographe theatres in London, Brussels, Belgium and New York.

In 1907 they produced the first practical colour photography process, the Autochrome Plate.