Recording and reproducing the senses aside from seeing and hearing (taste, smell, touch) has not yet been fully realized. The recording and sharing of senses is difficult, unless we are talking about seeing or hearing, and even then, there is a lot lost in the capture. We have mastered a very clear record of what we can see in photography and videography.
Recording touch
How do we begin to record what we touch? With haptics, like a remote robot glove, we might be able to record and play a touch. We’re just not there yet. When we are, we may never leave our homes. It’s very difficult to record touch, comparative to capturing a voice message or selfie. Poetry begins to capture touch, great literature approaches the capture of touch, but these require an investment and openness comparative to viewing the selfie. Something that is well written, that explains why something was an overwhelming, rewarding, or delicious experience, can lead to a sense of touch. But the touch itself is lacking. It’s not exactly the same as a GoPro, where you can really see the experience of the author. It’s not exactly the same as recording something with a good microphone, where you have a much clearer idea of what was heard in a given space for a given time.
Recording smells
We don’t really understand yet how to record smells, although perfume, food, and olfactory marketing begins to speak to it. Scratch and sniff stickers have been around a long time, and culinary scientists are adept at convincing us that we are eating meat when we are actually eating plant based protein. A store in the mall may be able to convince you via your nose to visit their shop. Despite this, there is no way for me to capture or share the smell of the oaks at the top of the hill in the neighborhood I grew up in that quickly brings a rush of conflicted childhood memories. There’s no recorder for that, yet.
Recording Taste
We have no idea how to synthetically record or reproduce the sense of taste in the same way as a photo or audio clip. The combination of flavors and ingredients in a dish lead to that particular taste, experience, memory, and imprint. A meal can lead to bliss at the hands of an accomplished chef. Your favorite dish from your mom may pass along with her. Recreating it synthetically is difficult.
You might say that I should just make the dish from the recipe. A recipe is certainly a record of the instructions for a taste, but it does not capture all of it. A recipe is a instructional recording of a dish. But, there may be other things that we are missing in the recipe. If a chef stirs or bastes a certain way, that might not be captured in the recipe. If the chef uses a California based spinach, and I use a Virginia spinach, the taste may be dramatically changed. Even if we recreate a recipe perfectly, it may still not have exactly the right taste, and we may not know why. We haven’t yet done a very good job of recording and reproducing a particular taste in any artificial form.
What if our smartphones could suddenly, faithfully, and quantifiably reproduce our favorite tastes, smells, and touches? What would that feel like? What would it smell like? What would it taste like? How would it disrupt our current paradigms? How would it affect culinary arts, human relationships, and memory?
A while back, I decided to go into GIMP and create an image of me and my sons, but to overlap our faces, and merge them at the eyes, nose, and mouth. It’s a simple trick, really:
Bring in each photo as layers, preferably where each photo was taken at the same distance and position from the camera, though it’s not entirely necessary.
Resize your GIMP canvas so that each of the faces will fit, so essentially doubling the original image size.
Drag horizontal alignment lines from the rulers so that they line up with the original photo’s eyes, nose, and mouth. Drag vertical alignment guidelines out from the rulers to align with the eyes and nose.
Resize the side image layers so that the eyes, nose, and mouth line up with the alignment guidelines.
Move the side images so that they overlap with the eyes.
Create layer masks for each of the side images.
Apply a gradient to each layer mask so that it reveals the faces to the right and left, but hides the overlapping portion of the faces over the central face.
Export the image and save the XCF.
I loved this image. I really liked how it captured all of us, and showed our connectivity. For Father’s Day this year, I had them hop in front of the camera again, so that I could recreate the image. I might make it a yearly thing. Here’s the 2020 image:
StreetBeefsis a Virginia based fight club, started in 2008.
StreetBeefs background
StreetBeefs is a Virginia based fight club, started in 2008. They invite people with real life (potentially deadly) arguments to come and fight it out in a ring instead, emphasized in their motto: “Guns down, gloves up“. It is a great organization that helps people to solve their problems in a ring, with referees, rounds, and safe oversight. I first learned about the club from a piece by the NYTimes featuring Chris Wilmore, the club’s founder, and began to watch the fights on YouTube, engaged by the idea of peacemaking.
Some of the fights are beef fights, in which combatants are avoiding gunfire. Many of the fights, though, are between fighters who have no external conflict, and who have gained some following due to the popularity of the videos. One very prominent and highly recognizable element, practically a character in itself in StreetBeefs videos is the cage, which contains various names indicating wall-of-fame status, fights won leaderboard, and other various information. The names are legend in the group, famous within that circle, and seen by (potentially) over a million subscribers in every fight. Someone had painted the names on the panels by hand. Bright yellow letters soared on the black plywood panel. It looks raw, street, and dramatic. If anything, I thought, maybe it could be a bit more organized and legible. But it was cool, and honest.
The names are legend in the group, famous within that circle, and seen by (potentially) over a million subscribers in every fight.
I noticed that Chris’ shout-out advertising for sponsors was pretty effective in getting a brand in the eyes and ears of many. With that in mind, I decided to reach out to Chris to see what his advertising rates were. What could it hurt, right? I thought it might be a good way to advertise my services in Virginia, though subscribers to StreetBeefs watch from all over the world.
A video panorama of the cage as it was before the project.
In mid-June, Chris responded over chat, and we started discussing how advertising might work out. In chatting, I mentioned that I loved the StreetBeefs Cage, but that I had a little dream that maybe I could redesign it for clarity. Chris responded enthusiastically, and asked if maybe we could trade shout outs before fights for work on the Cage, and he’d hang a banner for me during intros. I loved that idea. In addition to graphic work, he also needed some reinforcements for the cage and gates, which would sometimes swing open when large fighters would knock in to them. He added that he wanted to keep the ‘street feel’ to the cage, and not make it too clean/refined/hard-edged, a feeling that many StreetBeefs members reinforced later in prompts online.
StreetBeefs Cage Redesign
We agreed, and we set a done-by date. The deadline was July 4th, for a mixer event that they had planned. I started working on designs, and sending them to Chris and other staff, like SunShine and Lord Esteban, for approvals. After a few designs, we came to an agreement. I also started to prepare a banner for the intros.
So, after agreeing on the design, I took a trip out to visit the cage in Winchester, VA, about 2 hours from my location. I got to meet Wolverine, which was cool given that I had seen him in many of the videos. I measured the panels, investigated reinforcing the cage, and started planning a supply list. Originally, I planned to replace the plywood panels and start fresh. Without a truck, spare cash for the replacement plywood, or electric on site, the panel replacement idea would need help and money to happen. We scrapped rebuilding the cage panels to simplify the project. Due to an unfortunate mutual miscommunication, we had to delay for a week, which cut the lead time dramatically, and the whole StreetBeefs project almost fell apart.
We talked and regrouped and came to an agreement the week before the event. I started to pack for the work trip and anticipated an easy execution.
My original supply list:
2 cans black spraypaint
4 cans yellow spraypaint
2 packs 5 inch cardboard letter stencils
1 set 3 inch connected plastic letter stencils
4 foot level for line layout
general toolkit of art supplies (knives, colored pencils, and various other tools)
Tripod
Gaffer’s tape
Scotch tape
Larger gate closer for install
Challenges
I arrived on site by 10 am just 2 days before the event. I quickly realized that a few things might eventually get in the way of me finishing in time:
There was no grid power on site. My phone battery relied on my car running. It meant no use of lights, projectors, or anything else requiring steady power that might come in handy for a mural install.
The heat was in the 90s each day I was there, and the site is an open field. Working more than a few hours at a time in open sun was impossible. Re-upping on water meant a trip to 7-Eleven, about 15 minutes away.
There was no bathroom on site, and so a round-trip to the nearest public bathroom (that same 7-Eleven) was a 30 minute affair.
The place where I was is fairly remote from retail shops where I could get unforeseen supplies, usually 20 minutes or more away.
The site’s grass had (reasonably) not been cut since the last event, but the tall grass meant ticks, bees, wasps, and mosquitoes were at high levels. I often used a concrete-padded pavilion with a roof to arrange and tape the stencils, but the wasps did not like me being near their many homes in the beams.
Also frustrating efforts were the short gusts of wind that would pass through the field, often blowing 10 minutes of work off the table before the letters could be taped together along their seams. Sometimes I’d run over to the cage to do an install, and when I returned, I’d go find what had blown away.
I accomplished a lot in the first of two trips, despite these issues and challenges.
Day One
I began by overpainting the existing panels, which felt like a desecration to StreetBeefs. If it wasn’t done, though, the new design couldn’t happen.
The process of covering previous panels.
I realized that 2 cans was not nearly enough in painting over the panels with the black spraypaint. I figured that the 4 cans of yellow would not be enough either. 1 can covered about two large panels. So, I located the nearest hardware store in Google Maps, a True Value about 20 minutes away, and went to get extra cans of black, yellow, and orange spraypaint as an accent. Upon returning, I covered the rest of the panels with black spraypaint, and I began the process of arranging and scotch taping lines of the 5 inch stencil letters, in the relatively cool comfort of the roofed pavilion. It was also nice that there were a few trash cans and a bucket that served as work tables and chair out in the cage.
I printed out a page with the agreed-upon design to have all of the spell-checked names ready. Using the 5 inch cardboard letter stencils, I’d layout and scotch tape a line at a time, and then carry them over to the cage and use gaffer’s tape to hold them in place. Struggling to gaffe-tape a whole line proved difficult. I learned that it was easier to tape a few words at a time rather than the whole line, even on the small panels to avoid breaking the line apart at the scotch taped seams.
If a name had duplicate letters, or if one line had 5 of one letter, I needed extras. I had to trace and cut out duplicates of the letter or punctuation from scrap cardboard. A name like Ref Rob used up all of the R’s I had to use in that line. At the end of the first day, I felt like it was going slow. I had repainted the entire cage black, and finished just a part of the Staff panel. I decided I would eventually add the orange accent to the Staff panel and titles.
A video panorama at the end of day 1.
The stars and moon were incredibly bright and clear in the open field far from any traffic. It was deeply quiet.
Day Two
I camped out on-site in my car to save on costs. I enjoyed exploring the great gas station markets in Winchester, and I enjoyed getting my meals in them. After the sun went down, it was nice to explore the beautiful town. The stars and moon were incredibly bright and clear in the open field far from any traffic. It was deeply quiet. The next day, I awoke early, went and got breakfast and a gallon of cold water. I came back to finish the Staff panel. When I measured out the letters for the first Wall of Fame, I realized I had a brand new challenge.
The Wall of Fame Challenge
For every name like ‘Beach’, there were two or three names like ‘Jordanian Nightmare’.
The 5 inch letters I had used for the Staff panel would not work for the Wall of Fame panels. Not all of the required names would fit at that size. Two names in a line wouldn’t work in some cases, because the second name sometimes just would not fit. I measured again and realized that I had made a mistake. Either my scale on my design was wrong or my measurement of the panels was wrong. The 5 inch letters would not work. Fighter names averaged 11 letters each.
For every name like ‘Beach’, there were two or three names like ‘Jordanian Nightmare’. So, I looked at my tools to see how I could solve it. 3 inch stencil letters would work great. I’d need to paint them one letter at a time because the stencils were plastic and four to a sheet. I did not want to cut the plastic stencils or spend the day seeking out cardboard 3″ stencils. The 5″ letters were from Staples. A disappointing trip to Michael’s had every possible letter stencil, but all in wacky fonts. I did not want to take out time to run to Staples, because time was running out.
After thinking through a few solutions, I decided I would try hand painting each letter. I’d trace the stencil with a colored pencil that would show up on the black background, then hand-paint the tracing. Acrylic yellow paint would help, as I had nothing but spraypaint. Spray painting would be hard without masking the letters to the left and right each time. Hand-painting might greatly increase the time it would take to finish the panels. I still had most of the day to finish before the event the next day. I went to the nearby WalMart, picked up some yellow acrylic paint in tubes, and got back to the site. I decided to test it on the cage gate, which just needed the word ‘StreetBeefs’ added. If it took too long, I would possibly still be able to devise another solution before time ran out.
In short, it was a disaster. The tracing took a long time. It did not look remotely clean. The acrylic paint color was not so much yellow as neon green. The single word ‘StreetBeefs’ took nearly an hour, and the heat was really taking its toll. The project would not be finished, because the plan didn’t work, and I needed a new plan and more time. I contacted Chris, told him the cage would most likely not be ready.
The new plan: spraypaint the letters individually using the connected plastic 3 inch letter stencils. This is how I ended up finishing all of the Wall of Fame panels, just not during this first trip. It included gaffe-taping the plastic stencil letters in place. Each individual letter is lined up, then tape is used to block the letters to the right and left. Spraypaint is applied, then tape is removed. Rinse, lather, repeat.
I documented this in the video below where I add Beach to the Wall of Fame. It leaves a messy imprint because of all of the motion around very fresh paint. That added to the imprecise, raw feel. It results in a letter painted every two minutes on average, which means about an hour per line per panel. You can see the hand-traced-and-painted method being replaced in the gate video below.
Adding the name “Beach” using the connected stencil method on the second Wall of Fame panel. Redoing the StreetBeefs name using the connected stencil method to overwrite the previous failed method of tracing and filling by hand. Here’s what got done on the first trip after two days.
Chris was very understanding. In the first trip, I completed the gates, the Staff panel, a single line on 3 Walls of Fame, and titles. I traveled home, watched the event that ended up using the new panels unfinished, and was a little discouraged. Despite driving, working and gathering supplies, sunrise to sunset for two days, I had not completed the task.
However, I learned a lot. Using the plastic stencils worked relatively quickly. I’d be able to finish the Cage before the next event. I learned a lot about what was around in terms of resources in a town I hadn’t visited before. When I returned, I decided to bring a tarp and water. I’d eventually go to Staples in Winchester to buy cardboard 3″ letters to finish the Most Wins panels.
Final supply list:
4 cans black spraypaint
8 cans yellow spraypaint
1 can orange spraypaint
2 quarts acrylic paint
2 packs 5 inch cardboard letter stencils
2 packs 3 inch cardboard letter stencils
1 set 3 inch connected plastic letter stencils
4 foot level for line layout
general toolkit of art supplies (knives, colored pencils, and various other tools)
Tripod
Gaffer’s tape
Scotch tape
tarp and zip ties to create shade
a few gallons of water
10,000 MaH power bank to provide non-vehicle power for phone
Day Three
The next StreetBeefs event was coming up on July 11th. I drove up late on Wednesday, set up the site, got something to eat, camped out, got up early. With the tarp in place, water on hand, and the power bank charged, work was a lot less stressful. I set up to continue the letters as I had on the Walls of Fame, using the same method. It was slow, but fast enough to do an entire line in an hour. Here is the completed wall of fame, essentially my halfway point on day 3, after about 6 hours.
So, the final part of day 3 was completing the Most Wins panels. I looked at the punch list for the Most Wins panels. I realized it was time to just go into town to Staples and get the 3 inch cardboard letters. It would save time to be able to string them together in the same fashion as the Staff panel. So I did, and I also purchased index cards so that I could easily make duplicate letters. Plenty of daylight remained. I had a great time-saving tool in the smaller cardboard stencils.
With the tarp in place, water on hand, and the power bank charged, work was a lot less stressful.
By using the tarp and staying hydrated, things were comfortable. I was excited. The taped lines of cardboard stencils were a lot quicker to install than the plastic stencils. I used index cards to duplicate letters in the stencil image below.
The panels were finally complete. I took a final panorama video for posterity. Then, I was on my way home, surprisingly, after the first working day of the second trip.
Conclusions
In conclusion, there were a lot of pros and cons in the planning, design, and execution of the project. I did not complete the project on time. It did not turn out exactly like the proposed design. There were a lot of interesting physical and design challenges that took time to overcome. The cage retained its hand-painted, raw street-fight feel. The solutions eventually worked. I’m very happy with the final product. The remaining open panels provide opportunities for extension of the lists and other possibilities. I’d personally like to see graffiti based designs by talented artists in the group on Facebook.
I’m really happy that I was able to work on the project. Chris was pleased. Most exciting for me, StreetBeefs is going to be shouting me out for a while in exchange for the work. I want to thank Chris, SunShine, Corey, Esteban and everyone else at StreetBeefs for helping me to make it work!
If you have a design, logo, branding, or art project, I’d love to talk with you about it. You can talk with me at lemasney@gmail.com. Check out my rates page for an idea of costs. Take a look at my portfolio to see my design work. Let’s do something great together.
The finished cage. LeMasney (LEE-MAZZ-KNEE) Banner
Hey, friends! It’s John and this time I’m talking about using Inkscape to illustrate a Zen quote. This quote is “To set up what you like against what you don’t like — this is the disease of the mind ~ Seng-Ts’an” If we can find compassion, especially with those we disagree with, we make progress.
If you like it please thumbs-up or share! If you like my videos, please subscribe for more! I’m always looking for ways to connect with people about tech, design, teaching, and lots of other topics. If you think we should talk, connect with me at https://about.me/lemasney
disease of the mind cc-by lemasney
“The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry. Edited by Stephen Mitchell. Harper and Row, NY. 1989 The Mind of Absolute Trust The great way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences. Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear. When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction, heaven and earth are set apart. If you want to realize the truth, don’t be for or against. The struggle between good and evil is the primal disease of the mind. Not grasping the deeper meaning, you just trouble your minds serenity. As vast as infinite space, it is perfect and lacks nothing. But because you select and reject, you can’t perceive its true nature. Don’t get entangled in the world; don’t lose yourself in emptiness. Be at peace in the oneness of things, and all errors will disappear by themselves. If you don’t live the Tao, you fall into assertion or denial. Asserting that the world is real, you are blind to its deeper reality; denying that the world is real, you are blind to the selflessness of all things. The more you think about these matters, the farther you are from the truth. Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can’t go. Returning to the root, you find the meaning; chasing appearances, you lose there source. At the moment of profound insight, you transcend both appearance and emptiness. Don’t keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions. For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears. With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely. All at once you are free, with nothing left to hold on to. All is empty, brilliant, perfect in its own being. In the world of things as they are, there is no self, no non self. If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is “Not-two.” In this “Not-two” nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded. The enlightened of all times and places have entered into this truth. In it there is no gain or loss; one instant is ten thousand years. There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes. The tiny is as large as the vast when objective boundaries have vanished; the vast is as small as the tiny when you don’t have external limits. Being is an aspect of non-being; non-being is no different from being. Until you understand this truth, you won’t see anything clearly. One is all; all are one. When you realize this, what reason for holiness or wisdom? The mind of absolute trust is beyond all thought, all striving, is perfectly at peace, for in it there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.”
Kubrick revealed? The Dawn of Man superimposed over Dave’s dawn as a space traveler.
Origins and Explanation or Why Kubrick is a Genius
This project, in which I arranged Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001 to play both backwards and forwards simultaneously, was inspired by the beautiful and enlightening documentary on Kubrick’s The Shining named Room 237 by Rodney Ascher. I was dumbstruck by the section that explained a theory of how to watch The Shining properly – Backwards and forwards. Here’s an introduction to that idea:
“Analysis and awe sit side by side in the parts of our brains that engage in pattern recognition. The Shining Forwards And Backwards feeds both of them at once. Last year some folks at a Brooklyn theater – likely highly stoned folks – got the idea in their heads to play Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining forwards while projecting the movie backwards at the same time on the same screen. What was shocking was that it worked. That’s not to say that Kubrick intended the film to be seen this way, but it worked nonetheless.” curated by lemasney from Fantastic Fest Review: THE SHINING FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS | Birth.Movies.Death. at http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/10/01/fantastic-fest-review-the-shining-forwards-and-backwards
And perhaps my favorite way to introduce this idea that even if Kubrick didn’t do this purposefully, it’s still fascinating:
“(T)he film’s framing lends itself to this kind of an experiment. Kubrick is so precise about placement within the frame that you can overlay random images and find juxtapositions and reverberations in imagery. Whether or not this is purposeful is besides the point – what matters is how it’s experienced.” curated by lemasney from Fantastic Fest Review: THE SHINING FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS | Birth.Movies.Death. at http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/10/01/fantastic-fest-review-the-shining-forwards-and-backwards
I was so moved by the idea possibly applying to other films of Kubrick’s, that I rushed to my machine, ripped a copy, and started playing. This post is an invitation for you to do that play too. It’s easy for you to argue that it was not Stanley’s intention to do all of this extra work so that just a few might see it. Once you see it, it’s harder to argue against that idea. So, how does one do it?
Methodology
Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, backwards and forwards. (lemasney)
I don’t have access to projectors or film reels as The Shining theorists did. I did this right on my computer, and so can you. In fact, it’s likely the only way you’ll get to see it in all of its glory because of the copyright infringement of the product if broadcast without permission. I’ve had a few short clips taken down so far and rightfully so. I do not have copyright rights to the material. Because I am using this for the purposes of extending the content through critique and analysis, I feel I’m free to post this imagery, and have seen other examples, such as in the project that inspired this one:
“On Wednesday, March 9th, 2011, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, The Spectacle Theater screened Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining forwards and backwards simultaneously, superimposed. This experiment in projection was inspired by the analysis of The Shining by MSTRMND, and one line in particular: The Shining is a film meant to be watched both forwards and backwards. We took the MSTRMND gambit at face value. We put the US DVD version into Final Cut, removed all corporate logos and leaders at the beginning, and cut all credits at the end. The entire film image sequence was then copied, reversed and superimposed over the original forwards version. (For clarity’s sake we screened the forwards/backwards superimposition with the forwards audio only.)” curated by lemasney from KDK12 | The Shining: Forwards and Backwards at http://kdk12.tumblr.com/post/4879566957/the-shining-forwards-and-backwards
I believe I’d be able to argue that I did this without expectation of malice, but rather homage, to Stanley, nor personal monetary gain, while hopefully extending the film’s value through critical observation.
I still won’t post the whole rearranged film here, because it would easily be arguable that I had not done enough to change it, and I’d rather not have a showing with my voice over it, etc. You should see it in its true form, and that means you’ll probably have to do it or contact me for help, which I welcome. I am however sharing a lot of GIFs, the first of which are below. Please feel free to share at your own risk. I have a fantasy where I get the Paramount in Charlottesville, Virginia to do a screening for us on the big screen, but I doubt that I could afford the rights.
How to make your own Forwards and Backwards movies:
You have to have a non-protected version of the film in an editable format like MP4, which may mean getting the DVD and backing it up to a file, as I did. (If this is a new concept to you, check out this cool HowTo). You might get it some other way too.
Open the MP4 in a video editor (I use the open source video editor KDEnlive on Ubuntu Studio, you might use Adobe Premiere or something similar) on track one.
Open a second copy on track two and mute and reverse it. In KDEnlive, you can just right click on your original project clip and make a reversed copy. (Here’s the HowTo for that).
We mute the second copy because the audio weaves together the narrative of the two directions.
In order to see the second track ‘through’ the first, you have to add a transition between tracks to act as a layer mode for the video. I used Screen mode, which worked perfectly. (Here’s the HowTo for that.)
Render your edit, and begin watching. In the mean time, check out some of the short animations below to get some sense of what you will see.
I’ll explain more below and in future posts, but I can not see how the timing of the cuts and positions are anything but designed. Kubrick seems perfectly capable of going scene by scene, second by second, and arranging image A and image B to coincide. I feel certain of it, but others may not believe. I also believe in The Dark Side of Oz, where Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon replaces the soundtrack of the classic film The Wizard of Oz. If you can believe that was by design, this is easy, comparatively.
Introduction and Exit
Please click on the images to see them full size. You can navigate through them by opening any of them and clicking on the arrows left or right.
Dave and the desert
The human issue of eating
Obelisk encounters
Introduction and Title
Enrobed in light
The Dawn of Man
The introduction and exit of the film are fascinating to watch simultaneously. Having read Clarke’s entire series of books on this universe, the obelisk is an alien intelligence, allowing humanity to flourish by giving insight to technology unknown before through contact. This happens to the missing link men in the first scenes, to the men on the moon, and to Dave, becoming the space baby, a newly born time-traveling entity. Some impressions and narrative for the GIFs above:
Click on Introduction and Title to see the perfect choreography of space baby Dave’s eye, moon, sun, and earth.
The Dawn of Man plays with the idea of burial (Dave passing from human form to time traveler) in the ground of the reverse scene.
The obelisk contains light (symbolizing intelligence) often in this version of the film. Eating becomes a recurring, overlapping theme for ideological acceptance, and in The human issue of eating, we get a glimpse of the hogs lying about Dave’s purgatory room, and Dave eating an alien meal for sustenance.
In Enrobed in light, and Obelisk encounters the intense landscapes of the time travel Dave screams through are set against the landscape of early man. Also, notice how the light surrounds, follows, and amplifies the brutal emotion of early man, and how the light splatters and spits around these newly murderous human ancestors, shining with new and powerful intelligence.
Bright light (as intelligence, but not always kind) constantly reveals itself in the backwards and forwards play, like HAL’s red-eye over faces or objects of intense importance or intimate intelligence in other scenes.
In my next post, I’ll talk about the next scenes and my impressions. I hope you liked this introduction to the project, and I’d love to help you to do this kind of thing too, discovering new tools along the way. If I can help you, please give me a call at 609 553 9498 or email me at lemasney@gmail.com. There’s even a feedback form below. If it’s something especially nice, it might go in the testimonials! I’m John. Thanks!
Hi, I’m John LeMasney, a father, artist, photographer, and new resident in Charlottesville, Virginia. I have the honor of announcing that Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (JMRL) has agreed to let me speak in a free technology series in their beautiful downtown location. I love technology, and want to share what I love about it, continuing the work I’ve done for 20 years in the Northeastern part of our country. If you have a topic or a venue that you’d like covered, please contact me, and let’s make that happen. Let’s do something great together!
John LeMasney cc-by lemasney
Making Photos Great for Free.
Wednesday January 4th from 6-7pm
In this session, come and learn about how to take your digital photos and transform them into art with Virginia based artist, designer, and photographer John LeMasney. With great free tools for photo manipulation, illustration, and catalog management, you can do what the professionals do without the costs. Come and learn about photo technique, lighting, and more, while growing your toolbox beyond point and shoot.
Okay google, what year is it cc-by lemasney
Introduction to Internet of Things and Home Ecosystems.
February 1st from 6-7pm
In this session led by Virginia based artist, designer, and photographer John LeMasney, come and learn about the leading ecosystems that have emerged as AI assistants in the home. We will discuss all the major platforms like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple Siri, but we will focus deeply on the present and future state of Google Home, Google Now, ChromeCast, Chromebook, and related items in the Google Ecosystem in a in-session demonstration. If you are interested in having your lights blink when your partner leaves work, having an always listening all intelligent assistant in your home, or learning automatically that you need to leave a little early due to local traffic, you should join us!
wordpress statistics and analytics
Analytics, or the art of discovering your audience.
March 1st from 6-7pm
If you have a web site or presence in social media, that’s great! How many people visited it today? How about last week? Where did they live? Were they 15, 30, or 50? How many people saw that Instagram post? What is your most popular pin on Pinterest? What browser were they using? Analytics is any system that gives you insight about the way that your content was used. Let Virginia based artist, designer, and photographer John LeMasney help you answer all of those questions and others when you learn about analytics tools in social media, publishing platforms, and other places. We will discuss many platforms for analytics, including Google, social media, and more.
IFLL initial logo study by lemasney
Design for the Non-Designer.
Saturday April 1st from 1pm-2pm
In this session, come learn about digital visual communication with Virginia based artist, designer, and photographer John LeMasney. You likely did not encounter a lot of visual communication training in school, if you went to school in the US. The problem there is that successful contemporary mass communication is expressed today by artists and designers with specialized skills like visual literacy, software tools, and a sense of brand and audience awareness that graphic design can amplify. Design is important today, and if you are not sure where to start, here is a good place.
