Class Aid #1: Blender

On March, 24, 2006, after approximately 8 months of work, some of the best Blender artists collaborated to create a short film (~11 minutes) solely using Blender as their rendering tool. This short movie truly demonstrates what is capable of the freeware rendering tools which are available to the common person. Of course, the rendering required a 2.1 teraflop Apple Xserve G5-supercomputing cluster and each frame required on average 2.8 gigabytes of memory--a feat well outside the means of the common person. Yet, it remains an example of the infinite potential with which normal applications can produce phenomenal results.

Response #1: Symmetries

Developmentally, there exists a balance between symmetry and asymmetry, simplicity and complexity, generalization and specialization. In biology, symmetry is genetically favored for simple, generalized forms. For example, the leaves on a plant must be numerous in order to adequately capture enough sunlight for photosynthesis. Consequently, a simple, feasible design is easily coded for maximal conservation of energy. Even simple eukaryotes utilize symmetry due to its inherent generalization. Sea stars have symmetrical arms which can be easily regenerated due to their generalized structure and simplicity--the perfect balance between structure and function. While complex organisms still maintain a slight sense of symmetry (i.e. bilateral symmetry of bipedal simians) symmetry must often be sacrificed in order to conserve energy and achieve complex specialization. In the brain, there are symmetrically two lobes, yet each side is structurally specialized (i.e. functions of speech are lateralized to the left hemisphere in Broca's and Wernicke's area with more diverse specialization present in left- than right-handed individuals.) Ultimately, the question becomes, at what point does symmetry and generalization succumb to asymmetry and specialization? In nature, the answer rests not in aesthetics, but in the rather emotionally detached concept of energy conservation. Evolutionarily, what is most beneficial and energy-conserving without causing harm is preserved during natural selection.

In culture, though, when the individual is not a puppet to the merciless hands of a genetic puppeteer, the answer becomes much more ambiguous. For example, Van Gogh's Starry Night and Sunflowers definitely display aspects of symmetry and even mimic certain symmetries found within fauna and the microscopic world. The beauty of imaginative creation is that we sacrifice our own energy so that our creation may exist. Van Gogh's paintings can mimic and often surpass the symmetry found in nature because of his tireless labor to force symmetry into his creations. By spending excessive amounts of energy in brainstorming, creatively thinking, pondering, selecting scenery, choosing colors, he has become the catalyst through which limitless amounts of symmetry can be produced. The human body and mind becomes a bypass through which nature can be examined without the restraints of energy consumption and the battle between symmetry and asymmetry, specialization and generalization. Without these restraints, the world becomes a vibrant canvas and the mind is the paintbrush with which these two balances can be upset instantaneously with a single thought.