Prepare to be digitally manipulated
So, I sort of want to try to get back to updating a bit more again. I have thought about doing it at various points over the last few months, but I don't really do anything interesting enough to warrant updates! Or I do but then I forget to update until it's waaaaay after the fact and seems a bit pointless. For instance, at the beginning of December I went to see Four Year Strong at the Underworld with saffronra and yan_tan_tether, which was awesome - these guys are one of my new favourite bands (and sport some wonderful facial hair - in fact they refer to themselves as "beardcore"). But I didn't update, and I didn't update, and then I couldn't be bothered. Until now lol. Any random one line observations tend to go in slack_n_slash (lucky them) and bandom ramblings go elsewhere, so there's not much left! Anyway, all that aside, I shall try harder for a bit and see where it leads.
♥ First of all, and something I should have done already but failed to, thank you for all my Christmas presents! I'm not going to list people individually because even with stuff in front of me I'd probably forget someone, but they were without exception awesome. I will say this, though. megaleena: where the fuck did you get a gollywog from? It's genius and is sitting on top of the video collection, as the Mantelpiece of Tat is a bit full these days.
♥ I have found a brilliant dress for weird_bird's birthday party. Unfortunately, and there is always an unfortunately, it is in Laura Ashley, and is in their new collection, so costs £70. I am hoping that it goes into a sale before March, but I have to admit to myself that this is unlikely. It is the sort of dress that I could wear again, but I never really wear dresses at all so I don't know if I can justify the purchase. Poo. Here it is in all its pricey glory.
♥ On New Year's Eve Laura and I went to see Inkheart at the cinema. I would highly recommend it to EVERYONE. I will admit that I haven't read the book (although I've been meaning to pretty much since it came out. I'm on the ball me) so I can't tell you if it's a brilliant adaptation or not, but the film taken in and of itself is wonderful. The girl in it is extremely good (and must look like someone, because I sort of recognised her and I haven't really seen anything else she's been in) and Brendan Fraser is always a draw for a movie. Also, shirtless fire-breathing Paul Bettany. Nuff said. However, I did not get that there was supposed to be a burgeoning relationship between Farid and Meggie until Dustfinger pointed it out - I was more leaning towards Farid being head over heels for Dustfinger! And it's not just my dirty mind: Liss has basically no slash goggles and she was getting those vibes too. Whatever, it added to my enjoyment lol. Definitely one to add to the DVD collection. And indeed the book collection!
♥ Last night I was introduced to Leverage, the new series starring Mr Christian Kane. I've been looking forward to it but hadn't got around to watching. Oh my goodness darlings, it's fabulous. It's sort of like Hustle, only not. They're thieves and conmen but sort of Robin Hood types - they do jobs for people who've been fucked over by big corporations and the like, and however dirty their scams are, the client can't be touched for it. Or this is how it seems from the first few episodes. And there's a tiny blonde sociopath with an almost Bones-like incomprehension of the world. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.
♥ chaletian this one's mainly for you - I know how dear this subject is to your heart. On the floor below me, near the toilets are some paintings. Not unusual, you might say, and you would be right, however after they'd been there for a while I thought I'd read the little blurb that's pinned up next to them, and they were painted by a computer! Again, nothing particularly mind-blowing there, but this is what the blurb says. Note that it is written from the point of view of the computer:
Hello. I'm the painting fool. I'm a computer program that aspires to be an artist. I've been taught to sketch, draw and paint by my teacher, Dr. Simon Colton, since 2001. I differ from other graphics software by trying to simulate the painting process rather than just the results of the painting process. Painting is a highly cognitive activity which requires skill, appreciation and imagination. Programs such as Photoshop have some skill in being able to rapidly turn a digital photo into an image which looks like it might have been painted in, say, an impressionistic style. But the software is merely a tool to enable humans to be more creative. This is very useful, but Photoshop is not creative, because it is neither appreciative nor imaginative, so it will never be thought of as an artist in its own right. Having said all that, I'm not sure I'm creative myself yet. I've been engaging in a few projects which enable me to express skill, appreciation and imagination, as described below.
Skill
Currently, I mainly work from digital images to produce artworks. My skill lies in being able to look at an image as a collection of paint regions, determine which colours would work for painting the regions, then simulating the usage of all sorts of art materials to produce the picture on a simulated canvas.
And then from further down the page:
I've also worked with machine vision experts Maja Pantic and Michel Valstar at Imperial College, to use their software to analyse people's faces and determine their emotion automatically.
Imagination
Imagination is not something that is easy to simulate. I'm currently working on painting scenes which don't exist. For a sneaky peak, below are a couple of images from a skyline series and a flower series, where I composed the scenes myself. I hope to launch a new gallery of these images in early 2008. Watch this space...
The computer is LEARNING how to paint and THINKING about things like emotion! I can't really continue my thoughts here as it would spoil you for the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I think you see what I'm getting at.
So there you go, my first proper post of 2009, a tl;dr epic.
♥ First of all, and something I should have done already but failed to, thank you for all my Christmas presents! I'm not going to list people individually because even with stuff in front of me I'd probably forget someone, but they were without exception awesome. I will say this, though. megaleena: where the fuck did you get a gollywog from? It's genius and is sitting on top of the video collection, as the Mantelpiece of Tat is a bit full these days.
♥ I have found a brilliant dress for weird_bird's birthday party. Unfortunately, and there is always an unfortunately, it is in Laura Ashley, and is in their new collection, so costs £70. I am hoping that it goes into a sale before March, but I have to admit to myself that this is unlikely. It is the sort of dress that I could wear again, but I never really wear dresses at all so I don't know if I can justify the purchase. Poo. Here it is in all its pricey glory.
♥ On New Year's Eve Laura and I went to see Inkheart at the cinema. I would highly recommend it to EVERYONE. I will admit that I haven't read the book (although I've been meaning to pretty much since it came out. I'm on the ball me) so I can't tell you if it's a brilliant adaptation or not, but the film taken in and of itself is wonderful. The girl in it is extremely good (and must look like someone, because I sort of recognised her and I haven't really seen anything else she's been in) and Brendan Fraser is always a draw for a movie. Also, shirtless fire-breathing Paul Bettany. Nuff said. However, I did not get that there was supposed to be a burgeoning relationship between Farid and Meggie until Dustfinger pointed it out - I was more leaning towards Farid being head over heels for Dustfinger! And it's not just my dirty mind: Liss has basically no slash goggles and she was getting those vibes too. Whatever, it added to my enjoyment lol. Definitely one to add to the DVD collection. And indeed the book collection!
♥ Last night I was introduced to Leverage, the new series starring Mr Christian Kane. I've been looking forward to it but hadn't got around to watching. Oh my goodness darlings, it's fabulous. It's sort of like Hustle, only not. They're thieves and conmen but sort of Robin Hood types - they do jobs for people who've been fucked over by big corporations and the like, and however dirty their scams are, the client can't be touched for it. Or this is how it seems from the first few episodes. And there's a tiny blonde sociopath with an almost Bones-like incomprehension of the world. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.
♥ chaletian this one's mainly for you - I know how dear this subject is to your heart. On the floor below me, near the toilets are some paintings. Not unusual, you might say, and you would be right, however after they'd been there for a while I thought I'd read the little blurb that's pinned up next to them, and they were painted by a computer! Again, nothing particularly mind-blowing there, but this is what the blurb says. Note that it is written from the point of view of the computer:
Hello. I'm the painting fool. I'm a computer program that aspires to be an artist. I've been taught to sketch, draw and paint by my teacher, Dr. Simon Colton, since 2001. I differ from other graphics software by trying to simulate the painting process rather than just the results of the painting process. Painting is a highly cognitive activity which requires skill, appreciation and imagination. Programs such as Photoshop have some skill in being able to rapidly turn a digital photo into an image which looks like it might have been painted in, say, an impressionistic style. But the software is merely a tool to enable humans to be more creative. This is very useful, but Photoshop is not creative, because it is neither appreciative nor imaginative, so it will never be thought of as an artist in its own right. Having said all that, I'm not sure I'm creative myself yet. I've been engaging in a few projects which enable me to express skill, appreciation and imagination, as described below.
Skill
Currently, I mainly work from digital images to produce artworks. My skill lies in being able to look at an image as a collection of paint regions, determine which colours would work for painting the regions, then simulating the usage of all sorts of art materials to produce the picture on a simulated canvas.
And then from further down the page:
I've also worked with machine vision experts Maja Pantic and Michel Valstar at Imperial College, to use their software to analyse people's faces and determine their emotion automatically.
Imagination
Imagination is not something that is easy to simulate. I'm currently working on painting scenes which don't exist. For a sneaky peak, below are a couple of images from a skyline series and a flower series, where I composed the scenes myself. I hope to launch a new gallery of these images in early 2008. Watch this space...
The computer is LEARNING how to paint and THINKING about things like emotion! I can't really continue my thoughts here as it would spoil you for the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I think you see what I'm getting at.
So there you go, my first proper post of 2009, a tl;dr epic.