Virtual Muse

Prof. Charles Hartman looks at writing in a new way. Just as speech is a natural tendency of humans, Hartman writes in a manner that intentionally employs no artistry or artificiality, but creates poems through a random word generator. He cites the intrinsic uncertainty of quantum mechanics as evidence that the universe is constructed of random occurrences, and his poems merely capture the essence of the universe. "Attuning themselves to how the world really is, is an old ambition of poets." 

By applying a few bare-bones rules to the program, such as juxtaposing certain parts of speech, the randomized creations sound more plausible, more poetic, to the reader. "“The more discrete and self-contained the syntax of the line (complete clause, complete prepositional phrase), the more easily it joins with lines before and after. Keeping verb tense the same increases the opportunities for coherence. Short sharp images stand alone better than bits of narrative or argument.” Vast creative possibilities lie in poetry that comes about by happenstance. The poems will almost certainly be original (the "odds against an identical set of poems being created using the same input & parameters are approximately 5919247325225209600000000000000000000 to 1.”), and may inspire ideas in the reader that a deliberately written piece might never achieve. Those who claim Artificial Intelligence is impossible because computers can never do anything "unexpected" would see their arguments fall to pieces at the unique and unusual combinations of phrases that appear. 

This idea of randomness as art is similar, in a way, to Kac's transgenic "Genesis". Whereas in that piece a meaningful sentence coded in DNA was randomly changed by mutation, in this case randomly connected words form potentially meaningful sentences. In fact, there has always been a level of chance in even the most deliberate artwork: The angle of bristles in each brushstroke on the Mona Lisa, the minute surface irregularities in Michelangelo's David, and beyond that the random motion of subatomic particles within the physical building blocks of any and every piece of art––not to mention in the minds that created them. Hartman is simply embracing this process; rolling the dice and taking more than a passing glance at the results.

Word Technologies

In the full swing of the Information Age, we face interesting questions about the intersection of Information, the most basic form of which is language; Technology, humanity's departure from nature; and Art, an interpretive expression of ideas and emotions. It is interesting to note that in the ancient Greek word "tekne" from which the word"technology" derives, refers not only to scientific advancement, but to arts and crafts. Since its most primitive occurrence, art has been defined by the technologies it requires. One of the oldest pieces of art is an animal thigh bone with holes drilled in it (perhaps a crude flute), found near a neanderthal cave from 45,000 years ago. Was this ancient instrument used for communication? Did music predate language? According to paleobiologists and anthropologists, this and other artistic tools are distinct from nature. The very term "art" is related to "artificial",  that is, not naturally occurring. Language, on the other hand, is a natural tendency of humans, and so not technology. Of course, this distinction comes with apparent exceptions to the rule. Take Casper Hauser for example, a child isolated from human contact until the age of 16. When first encountered, he was barely able to walk, and incapable of speech. And yet, after a few years of socialization and education, he developed the skills to write, read, draw, talk, and interact. So which of these tendencies are intrinsic in human biology, and which artificial? 

It was Noam Chomsky who revolutionized linguistics in the 50's and claimed that language was genetically ingrained in us. Indeed, the human capacity for learning language is staggering. The average high school graduate has a vocabulary of approximately 100,000 words. Divided by 18 years and 365 days, that amounts to an average of 15 words per day. But a disproportionate percent of that vocabulary was developed at relatively early age, resulting in an even higher rate of learning.

Granted, this rate of learning is vastly greater than that of humans 45,000 years ago. What changed in between? Perhaps the greatest invention in human history: writing. As might be expected, letters developed from highly modified pictographs. Sumerian cuneiforms, the earliest form of writing, appeared some 5000 years ago, it changed the auditory, insubstantial form of verbal communication into a concrete visual medium. It's primary purpose in those early days was bookkeeping to keep track of trade. 

The written word developed substantially, and appeared in various cultures over the next few thousand years. Still, the manner by which information was passed along remained largely unchanged. The Sumerians had made clay stamps allowing them to reproduce the same text or imagery many times. The Chinese had mastered printmaking, but it was Gutenberg and his movable type that revolutionized the transfer of knowledge yet again. This was largely because the European alphabet, developed by the Phoenecians, had few enough characters to be efficiently reorganized to make new words. The Chinese language, on the other hand, consisted of thousands of distinct characters, so a printing press would have been unfeasible.

Methods of text reproduction have progressed in leaps and bounds since then, with entire libraries now being transferred across the world with the click of a button. However, regardless of the way it has been recorded, written language has always been written by humans.

Advances in Scenic Technology & Broadway Spectacle

The Western tradition of theater originated with the Greeks. In 330 BCE, the great philosopher Aristotle wrote "The Poetics", a discourse on effective tragic plays, in which he identified the six categories that factored into the making of a play. These  were Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Music, and Spectacle. This last category was considered the "lowest" and least sophisticated of the lot, and it is this one which we discussed. Theater played a major role in Greece, where the City Dionysia was a three day festival with numerous plays competing for praise and recognition. Before crowds of up to 14,000 at a time, performances were designed to exult Athenian culture. The stages on which the plays took place were highly advanced and impressive in and of themselves, with many innovations familiar in even state of the art theater today. 

A chorus of up to fifty people performed the plays in verse with music. The stage was a half-circle in front of the orchestra––where the chorus performed––situated on a terrace at the foot of the hill. Theatres were built on a large scale to hold the many people on stage, and in the audience. Architects used mathematical calculations to create acoustics such that the actors' voices could be heard throughout the audience. A backdrop known as the skené stood behind the orchestra. The paraskenia, with projecting walls housing doorway for entrances and exits, became a common supplement to skenes in late 4th century BCE. Just behind the paraskenia was the proskenion ("in front of the scene") which was columned, and similar to the modern day proscenium. Among the advanced set pieces used in this era were:

• Periakto: rotating tower w/ 3 scenes
  
• Ekkylema: slip stage
  
• Machina: crane
  
• Pinake: flat

When Rome conquered the land and appropriated much of Greek culture, the spectacle of the theaters was taken to grandiose heights. The Roman Colosseum seated 50,000, and performed 300 days of festivals. Comedies were popular with the crowd, but of course the Colosseum's most famous legacy was the gladiatorial battles. The action films of their time, these had none of the restraint of Greek Theater. Bloody massacres, exotic animals, even a sea battle on a flooded stage.

Needless to say, when the Christian Church was established, the violent spectacle––and most theatre for that matter––were thoroughly quashed. Up until the Renaissance, the only activities resembling theatrical spectacle were Liturgical Dramas that reenacted the 12 stations of Christ, and pageants outside churches. But then came the Renaissance, and with it a revival of Greek and Roman traditions, along with new innovations. The construction of indoor wooden theaters was modeled on ships, and the machinist (in charge of special effects) was considered second only to the director. While Shakespeare employed relatively simple visuals, a contemporary of his by the name of Inigo Jones used his expertise in painting and architecture to create finely crafted masques, movable set pieces, and a rigging system to levitate chariots over the audience that baffles experts to this day.

From this period through the 1800's, theater continued to change and develop. Tennis court theaters entertained nobles outside. The romantic movement responded to classical traditions with yet more elaborate spectacles, including new technological innovations such as the limelight, followed by the first spotlight at the turn of the 20th century. Over the last century, the visual spectacles of theater have incorporated more and more advanced technology. Robotic lights are programed when to go on, and can be redirected automatically. Entire stages can be motorized to swivel. Video projections have been incorporated into sets. And yet, theaters have been overtaken by recorded media––film and television to be precise. Performances can be experienced cheaper and in greater variety in one's own living room, and theater productions charging $60 to hundreds a seat continue to lose business. But perhaps another great innovation is around the corner, to bring theater to the forefront of culture once again.

Chemistry of Pigments

After the nature of sound was discussed, the next logical step is the nature of light––and the primary substance in visual art that interacts with that light. Since long before the stenciled cave paintings of 35,000 years ago, artists have carefully considered the pigments they would use to render their work. Until the relatively recent innovation of synthesized pigments, artists had to use colored materials they found in nature to make paints. They had to be chemists as well as artists.  Like sound, light is a wave. But unlike sound, it is not a physical wave transmitted through particles of matter, but electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic spectrum goes from the low energy radio waves all the way up to gamma rays packing deadly doses of energy, and extends far beyond the narrow band of visual light in both directions. At the low end of the visual spectrum is red, and passes through all the colors of the rainbow on its way up to violet. Each color of light is like a different pitch of sound, with the frequency of the wave determining the hue. As the myriad frequencies of light coming from our Sun interact with physical objects around us, certain frequencies of light are absorbed, while others are reflected. The reflected color is the only one we see. "Red" pigment does not in any sense give off red light, but rather absorbs every color of light but red. 

The correspondence between color and substance are as follows (rather simplified):

• Arsenic pigments: Paris Green

• Carbon pigments: Carbon Black, Ivory Black, Vine Black, Lamp Black

• Cadmium pigments: cadmium pigments, Cadmium Green, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange

• Iron oxide pigments: Caput Mortuum, oxide red, Red Ochre, Sanguine, Venetian Red

• Prussian blue

• Chromium pigments: Chrome Green, Chrome Yellow

• Cobalt pigments: Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Violet, Aureolin

• Lead pigments: lead white, Naples yellow, Cremnitz White, red lead

• Copper pigments: Paris Green, Verdigris, Viridian, Egyptian Blue, Han Purple

• Titanium pigments: Titanium White, Titanium Beige, Titanium yellow, Titanium Black

• Ultramarine pigments: Ultramarine, Ultramarine Green Shade, French Ultramarine

• Mercury pigments: Vermilion

• Zinc pigments: Zinc White

• Clay earth pigments (which are also iron oxides): Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Yellow Ochre.

• Lapis lazuli,

• Biological origins: Alizarin, Alizarin Crimson, Gamboge, Indigo, Indian Yellow, Cochineal Red, Tyrian Purple, Rose madder

• Other Organic: Pigment Red 170, Phthalo Green, Phthalo Blue, Quinacridone Magenta.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the range of colors available for art and decoration was very limited. Most of the pigments used came from minerals in the ground, or biological sources. Natural iron oxides give a range of colors and are found in many Paleolithic and Neolithic cave paintings. Two examples include Red Ochre and the hydrated Yellow Ochre. Charcoal, or carbon black, has also been used as a black pigment since prehistoric times. Pigments from unusual places such as botanical materials, animal waste, insects, and mollusks were harvested and traded over long distances. Some colors were costly or impossible to mix with the range of pigments that were available. Blue and purple came to be associated with royalty because of their rarity and expense.

The only way to achieve a deep rich blue was by using a semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, to produce a pigment known as ultramarine, and the best sources of lapis were remote. Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck, working in the 15th century, did not ordinarily include blue in his paintings. To have one's portrait commissioned and painted with ultramarine blue was considered a great luxury. When Van Eyck used lapis, he never blended it with other colors. Instead he applied it in pure form, almost as a decorative glaze. 

The Industrial and Scientific Revolutions brought a huge expansion in the range of synthetic pigments, pigments that are manufactured or refined from naturally occurring materials, available both for manufacturing and artistic expression. Because of the expense of Lapis Lazuli, much effort went into finding a less costly blue pigment.

Prussian Blue was the first modern synthetic pigment, discovered by accident in 1704. By the early 19th century, synthetic and metallic blue pigments had been added to the range of blues, including French ultramarine, a synthetic form of lapis lazuli, and the various forms of Cobalt and Cerulean Blue. In the early 20th century, organic chemistry added Phthalo Blue, a synthetic, organic pigment with overwhelming tinting power.

Physics of Sound

Firstly, lets get the definitions out of the way: 

Sound is a wave which is created by vibrating objects and propagated through a medium from one location to another. A wave can be described as a disturbance that travels through a medium, transporting energy from one location to another location. The medium is simply the material through which the disturbance is moving; it can be thought of as a series of interacting particles. Typically, this medium is air; though it could be any material such as water or steel. The medium is simply a series of interconnected and interacting particles. The vibr

ating object which creates the disturbance could be the vocal chords of a person, the vibrating string and sound board of a guitar or violin, the vibrating tines of a tuning fork, or the vibrating diaphragm of a radio speaker. 

While we live with sound in our everyday lives and are quite familiar with it, it remains something seemingly intangible. The sound waves are invisible as they pass through the air, and the only part of it we can see is the source. 

Or is it? Cymatics, the study of wavephenomena, focuses largely on the physical patterns produced through the interaction of sound waves in a medium. The waves through a physical, fluid medium can create a clear visual representation of the forces at work. The most potent demonstrations of this involve a fluid (which could be sand or a fine powder, along with liquids and solutions) spread onto a vibrating surface that produces a sound. As the waves pass through the fluid, it comes alive on the surface, reacting in a myriad of different forms. Sand often forms geometric ridges that follow the direction of the sound waves. A droplet of dye in water will form swirls that change with the sound frequency. My personal favorite version of this pheno

menon is cornstarch solution on a speaker. Being a non-Newtonian fluid, the cornstarch hardens as pressure is applied to it, and softens and pressure is released. So as the surface presses against the solution and pulls away, globules and mounds build up, that seem to reach upward and peel off the surface like some amoebic intelligence. The effects are truly startling.

Another way of visualizing sound is the oscilloscope: a type of electronic test equipment that allow signal voltages to be viewed, usually as a two-dimensional graph of one or more electrical potential differences (vertical axis) plotted as a function of time or of some other voltage (horizontal axis). These are most famously used in heart monitors, but a more artistic application is to free up the green line from its strict axial limitations, so that it can move every which way in response to different pitches. The results can be visually striking.

While the previously mentioned methods are excellent for showing the physical disturbance caused by sound, their representation of pitch is imprecise and obscure. The clearest way for one to examine the various pitches in a sound is an audio spectrograph. This digital imagery shows the pitch on the y axis, and time on the x. As a sound plays through the spectrograph, the viewer sees a landscape of glowing textures and swirls, a visual analogue that perfectly represents what one is hearing. As can be seen in the image, this process does not only go one way. Programs exist now that allow audio technicians to "draw" images into a spectrograph, and convert them into sound. The demonic visage in the picture is Richard James of the one-man-band Aphex Twin. He is a Scottish electronic musician who famously uses his face in unexpected and unsettling ways. 

The ties between sight and sound can be taken much further, and represented more directly, than the iTunes visualizer. Since a sound wave becomes an onscreen performer in Disney's Fantasia who displays various instruments in terms of abstract visuals that mimic the pitch and sharpness, artists have toyed with the relationship between sight and sound. Digital technology has opened the door to whole new ways to explore such ideas.

Scientific Visualization

Transgenic Art

The phrase was first coined by scientist and innovator in the field Eduardo Kac, who describes it as "a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering techniques to transfer synthetic genes to an organism or to transfer natural genetic material from one species into another, to create unique living beings." Rather than rendering an analog of artistic effect using physical media, he and others in this field sought to actually create the effect by manipulating the genes of organisms. Notable works in Kac's portfolio include "Genesis", an exhibit that displays bacteria containing a synthetic gene, the base pairs of which correspond to morse code for a sentence from the Book of Genesis, reading "Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." Rather ambitious words, to match an ambitious new step in artwork. Viewers on the web were given control over an ultraviolet light in the setup, which would mutate the bacteria's DNA when turned on. Thus, the genetic code would be continually changing from the original, and forming new (if unintelligible) phrases. Kac says of this piece: "In the context of the work, the ability to change the sentence is a symbolic gesture: it means that we do not accept its meaning in the form we inherited it, and that new meanings emerge as we seek to change it."

A more direct approach tying cells to writing is Typosperma. Created by Oded Ezer, it is the second experimental typo project in his 'Biotypography' series. As a paraphrase on the biotechnology definition, 'Biotypography' is a term that refers to any typographical application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to create or modify typographical phenomena. The main idea of the 'Typosperma' project was to create some sort of new transgenic creatures, half (human) sperm, half letter. These imaginary creatures are cloned sperms, that typographic information has been implanted into their DNA.

A very different piece of transgenic art uses genetically manipulated organisms not as a coded message, but as pixels in a vast canvas. GFPixel is a “painting” made of genetically transformed bacteria. These organisms are bred in about 4000 Petri-dishes that are arranged as a portrait. Like on digital screens part of the bacteria produce the green light – the GFP-gene is "switched ON" and in the other part the GFP-gene is ”switched OFF”. The artists that created this piece are Reinhard Nestelbacher, a molecular biologist, and Gerfried Stocker, a media artist who previously employed such technologies as robotics.

While Genesis was Kac's earliest transgenic piece, his most famous would be Alba, the Glow Bunny. Alba was an albino rabbit to whom scientists added phosphorescent genes from jellyfish. This meant that Alba would glow green under ultraviolet light. Scientists have since produced fish, pigs, and cats with similar properties.

While fiddling with the DNA of bacteria is all well and good in the eyes of the general public, the manipulation of fuzzy mammals causes more distress. Many genetically modified embryos are stillborn before that one perfect creature that survives, and some consider it inhuman to mess with these creatures just to show it can be done. As anyone who's seen Jurassic Park, or Gattaca knows, genetic manipulation is seen as reckless and potentially dangerous by a skeptical public. Granted, the same can be said of robotics, computers, and any other emergent technology. Risks of rampaging dinosaurs aside, GMOs have clearly become a part of the modern world, and have been incorporated into artistic endeavors as with nearly every other technological breakthrough of the past.

Benjamin West: Notes on “Painting in an Age of Innovation”

Benjamin West 

In the late 18th century it was believed that British painters lacked the knowledge of painting techniques which had developed in Europe (Italy in particular). In 1760 there were many more painters in London than ever before, so there was much more competition in getting one's art into an exhibit. Artists thought that displaying greater technical innovations than their colleagues would get them noticed. As for the wax painting technique that West developed, there was an ancient source in Pliny that gave the method artistic credence, but it was vague enough to permit experimentation. Invention and experimentation were very much in the spirit of the Scientific Enlightenment that was going on at the time. Intellectuals had confidence in progress, and were not as strictly constrained by the past. Hence the term  "age of innovation". Till now, painters had been essentially very conservative about sticking to old techniques, because of the learning curve of a craft that took many years to master. Benjamin West's work influenced British & American painters, and strove to discover “lost secrets” of Titian and other early painters.

Art Conservation
The job of an art conservator is to fix damaged art. Much like a physician, the conservator tries to keep subject “healthy”,  and studies how deterioration occurs. The main factor in deterioration are substandard storage conditions, weather damage, and easily deteriorating  media (such was the case in West's wax paintings) A conservator takes cross sections of a painting to study the pigment composition. Scientific analysis can determine issues of authenticity. On major issue in conservation is that religious articles are sometimes remodeled and copied.