Final Comment

As my final comment, I want to leave everyone with a passage from a practice drill I was doing in order to study for the MCAT. Although I don't know who this author is, its message was not lost on me. The part that imprinted on me and which will most likely stay in my mind for awhile is the following excerpt from the above passage. It is the most eloquently and beautifully phrased description of art's true existence that I have ever read:

"Art's true reality, though, lies in neither tinctured pigment, smoothed on canvas nor the splendid stories brilliantly told by brush strokes, but in the eyes, hearts, and minds of those who drink its visions with their souls."

Best of luck to everyone in this class on their journeys throughout life.

Beads of a String: Planets, Suns, and the Universe

Although I like the images within SuperVision, I want to present the class with something is personal to me and will bring new visions, just as SuperVision attempts to do, to students.
All the images which I will be presenting are related to space, which is a fascination of mine. Whether it is meteor-watching or wondering about our origins, space has always provided me with an endless series of questions which keep me occupied whenever my mind begins to wander. Infinitely larger than the space within our skulls that contains the brain matter which fires action potentials to contemplate it, I would be surprised if in our current age of technological enlightenment we knew 0.0000000001% about the universe. Yet, throughout my reflections on the universe, I have come across dozens of ideas and images which support the repetition within nature (which can help our investigations throughout the universe), new creation (which will inspire us to investigate and make us modest), and possible dangers that our egoism will cause.

Repetition:



On the left, Cyclone Hondo rages across the southern Indian Ocean, while on the right, the Great Red Spot rages across the surface of Jupiter. Although the Great Red Spot is more continuous and larger, they both display the same storm dynamics despite being on different celestial bodies.



Despite their vast differences from the sun, gravitational pressures, angles of rotation, and variations in the internal heating of the bodies' core have caused Antarctica to appear very similar to the surface of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, which is believed to be covered in frozen ice.



Even on Earth, repetition is a key concept for physics and many other scientific investigations. Although the Northern Lights (left) are caused by glowing ions entering in the atmosphere and the phytoplankton swarms off the coast of Nambia (right) are reflecting light off their bodies, both utilize the same physical concepts and produce the same effect.



Indeed, even our own galaxy is a repeatable pattern of planets and gases flowing towards a supermassive blackhole. Our Milky Way galazy (left) looks very similar to the nearby M74 spiral galazy, which is a close neighbor. Even on the massively huge scales of galaxies, patterns can be observed.

Creation:



On the other hand, some things cannot be experienced on our planet or within our solar system. To the joy and amazement of scientists we are still discovering new things in the universe. For example, the M-16 Stellar Spire (Eagle Nebula; left) and the Fox Fur Nebula (middle) are not only beautiful acts of creation, but cannot be in their spontaneity and formation. In addition, scientists are baffled by other creations, which seem to defy the laws of physics, such as the hexagonal storm (right) in the northern pole of Saturn's dense atmosphere. It stretches over 25,000 kilometers across!
Human Egoism:



In our progess towards greater discovery, we must let human egoism remain a form of playful entertainment and not a vehicle of exploration. Some people see familiar objects in newly discovered ones, such as eyes (a Martian crater; left), happy faces (another Martian crater; middle), or birds ('Cosmic Bird' spiral galaxy; right). Although these are fun thoughts to entertain the layperson, sometimes scientists assume that newly discovered objects can only perpetuate known trends. For example, many scientists believe organisms have to be carbon-based because we are; however, the possibilities are endless for the development of living beings. The first extraterrestrial creature humanity discovers could be silicon-based!

Conclusion:


Humanity truly is unique. To our knowledge, we are the only organisms to evolve to this point of cognitive superiority over our surroundings. Like beads on a string, thousands of planets have been ensnared by thousands of suns, yet ours appears to be the only one which is the proper distance with the proper building blocks for life. Yet, in our awareness of ourself and this fact, we must remain humble and protective of this beautiful gift we have. In discovering how rare and unique we are as a biological phenomenon, one begins to understand how truly precious preserving our planet and our species becomes as we travel through space, time, and discovery.

In-Class Activity #1: Paper

Selective attention and processing is how human beings participate in day-to-day activities without developing psychosis. Imagine if you were unable to filter the noises of all the students around you before the start of a class in Chem 1800? Or, what would your state of mind be if you put every detail of what you did yesterday into your long-term memory? The answer is depressing: in A.R. Luria's Mind of the Mnemonist he describes a man with a limitless memory who lost every job he ever attained due to the distraction of every sensory stimulation and action he had every experienced or performed throughout his life.
With my paper, I folded it into two, torn it in half, and placed the second piece of paper over the first. Then, I wrote to the left and right of the crease:

(L) Open
(L) Eyes
(R) do
(R) not
(R) necessarily
(L) see.

No one noticed it, because their attention wasn't framed properly. The words were merely an impression on the paper, which had to be tilted in order for the light to create shadows and reveal the indentation on the second piece of paper, which I discarded. Without knowing this, the brain naturally seeks the stark contrast of black font with white background. In its absence, attention discards it as simply "paper" and moves on to more important stimuli.

Although I will be the first to admit that this ability to sense, process, and filter stimuli is of foremost importance to human evolution (and the maintenance of sanity), it is also necessary to place a check and balance on this useful adaptation. Indeed, smart people can be so stupid, but it's usually because of using the wrong framing or schema. For example, an expert rock climber could fall to his/her death because the person follows a strict routine of attaching their harness, clipping their caribeener securely on their harness, then checking their shoes. If one day, the person attached their harness, then noticed that their shoes were untied and checked them, they might follow their regular 'schema' of checking harness, caribeener, then shoes, which would trick them into believing (due to logical progression through the schema) that they had secured their caribeener since they were currently focused on their shoes. It's a simple mistake, which even a highly intelligent, very skilled individual can make.

Consider the following optical illusions and remember that things are not always what they seem and sometimes what your mind concludes first is not always best.

Optical Illusion #1: Distorted Room


Optical Illusion #2: House

In-Class Topic #2: Interpretations

Are there ever correct ways to interpret art?

Art, regardless of its medium, is the greatest espousal of human creation. It recreates; it distorts; it imagines. Imagination is not bounded by the laws of reality and gives birth to infinite possibilities. Even after creation when a possibility is finally chosen by the artist, the artwork is not bound by the possibility, because only the creator knows the reasons for the creation. To an observer, the artwork is reduced once again to the plane of infinite possibilities. Despite the fact that the artwork may have a very simple objective reality (i.e. Monet's Lilies), the feelings, ruminations, and actions which it inspires to the observer are endless. To me, the painting reminds me of my grandmother, whose favorite artist is Monet. It evokes pleasant memories of childhood and spending time with my grandmother. It reminds me of her happiness when I gave her this print, among many, as a gift a long time ago. Monet did not know Lilies would be associated with these thoughts and emotions when he painted Lilies. Nor do I know what thoughts and emotions it will evoke in others. That is the true beauty of art: even though the artist's life is finite, his artwork is eternal through its interpretations and effects.

Monet has long since died, the paint on his canvas has long since dried, and his reasons for creating Lilies, even if he expressed them in an interview, can never be completely captured. Yet, his work, even if the original and every print were destroyed, would remain eternal in the minds of others and its possibilities would be infinite as the creation becomes the creator. Just as Monet created Lilies, it itself has created memories for me, and these memories will most likely motivate me to create unknowns in the future, whether in thought or through action.

For those who read this, I want you to watch the video that I have attached: Breath by Samuel Beckett. Common sense leads a person to believe artwork is open to more interpretations when it is longer or more complicated; however, Samuel Beckett proved the converse. This play is only 25 seconds long. He stipulated only a few details: the length, the types of breaths, the lighting, that rubbish must litter the stage, and that the rubbish should not be stacked vertically, but rather strewn carelessly. Critics say that Beckett created it to personify his classical, existentialist theme: the relative shortness and pointlessness of life itself. Other critics view it as a joke. Again, the beauty is that no one will truly know what Beckett wanted people to feel or think. (Ironically, not knowing how to feel or think would most likely exemplify in his mind why human choice and life is pointless.) All of us have to decide what the message, meaning, and 'moral' is.

To me, it is the perfect depiction of Samuel Beckett's views on existence. To exist is tragic. Breath is the metaphor for our birth, life, and death in a world of filth, which lasts only a moment but extends infinitely around us, never rising higher than a pathetically thin film of decay. Although I don't agree with the meaning, this is the message which I receive, because I can put myself in his place since I'm an avid reader of existentialist literature. Similarly, since I admire Impressionism, I can understand the naturalistic, snapshot clarity of instantaneous experience which Monet desired in his paintings. Despite my knowledge of their motives and desires, though, I understand that their works are like meteors, flaring brilliantly long after the comet has departed and never showing the same shower twice.

What thoughts and feelings does this video interpretation evoke in you?

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.

In-Class Topic #1

Do artists create doors and windows into their artwork? Do observers? How so?

Doors and windows into reality are both perceptions of existence. No matter how powerful artwork is, it will still be unappreciated--and inexistent-- to a person who does not posses their complete sensory faculties: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Additionally, even a person with normally functioning senses will appreciate artwork differently than another individual based on their own environmental, behavioral, and chemical palette that they carry with them through life to paint their surroundings. Some would call this palette personal 'aesthetics.' This variance in perception applies both to the artist and the observer. For example, the shifting use of colors from yellow to blue in Van Gogh's paintings has been attributed to the theory that he had depression or bi-polar disorder; however, who really knows what his eyes saw on his canvases and why? If one were to focus solely on a single psychiatric disorder, such as major depressive disorder (MDD), one would discover that 'perception' is not an objective term. In recent psychological studies, it has been demonstrated that depressed individuals have an impaired sense of smell and overcompensate with heavy use of perfume, they don't savor things that were once tasteful, and they even dream longer and more vividly than others. Due to the influences of our unique biochemistries and our resulting perceptual and emotional vantages, an artist may create metaphysical 'doors' and 'windows' for how their artwork is viewed or interpreted; yet, ultimately the keys and curtains are in the control of the observer.