idonthaveacoolname

A few photos from Notre Dame in Montreal. I just woke up and decided to go. I’m attempting spontaneity.  

/edit – mad props to DM for his recommendation to go to Montreal. Okay, maybe not as spontaneous as I could have been. But at least I didn’t book a hotel. I checked but did not book. Oh, and that’s my late lunch below at a great little resto on St.Paul in Old Montreal.

  

               

I am not quite sure what to think. As most of you know, I have a passion for the visual. From photography to painting to landscape to sculpture to architecture to nature, the visual and its interpretation consumes a fair bit of my cerebral processing. On a separate level, how to contextualize and to think about the visual, and its aesthetics including style is an incredibly intriguing thing to ponder. But what do I make of these images created by Google AI? I think that I begin by questioning whether or not a human brain can even contextualize an artificial  brain. If I assume that it is true, what can we learn about our interpretation of human art through our attempt to understand this type of non human art? Is it art? A thought perhaps left to too much coffee or wine.

//edit – here is more information from Google Research.

Racism continues to haunt America. Anyone who doesn’t recognize this fact is being disingenuous. Here is an article written by several scholars from Harvard who show that the deeper the prevalence of institutional slavery in the 19th century, the more likely white voters in those same areas today oppose affirmative action and other programs to assist the poor, largely former slave, population. This “scarring”, common in the socio-economic literature of immigrants who arrive in times of economic downturn, has not been adopted by sociologists on this issue: the legacy of slavery is prevalent and persistent. As many others have noted: the North won the War but the South won the Reconstruction. As an aside, the War Nerd earlier argued here that the North made a strategic error by not hanging the leaders of the South, a Morgenthau Plan for the Mason-Dixon.

My good friend JL, a huge U2 fan, got a chance to chat with Bono on his most recent tour in Ottawa. Even snagged an autograph

Check out around the 2 minute mark here.

I have a friend who will remain nameless who cringes each time I speak about the wonder that is Prometheus. I joke with him because he has zero time for anything that I have to say on the matter, although he did like the Alien series. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled onto this Prometheus/Alien fan edit! I’m looking forward to watching it at Vimeo.

I’m posting a few pics from the last week or so.  

                         

An interesting paper and video on using public images to create time lapse videos. Very interesting stuff here! 

I woke up this morning and as I went online I realized that my favorite television show is now back. Masterchef Australia, my favorite TV show, is now beginning, thus causing me to watch too much TV and eat too much good food as I attempt to re-create the Masterclass recipes! More here.

One of my favorite series to watch on TV right now is the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul. Here is a great article on the use of dramatic lighting in the show and how the show borrows techniques of Caravaggio and other painterly techniques such as chiaroscuro to enhance the overall tone of the show. 

I feel really out of the loop and do promise to spend more time putting together ore posts. My two photo books are done, the first has arrived and the second is on its way. Each are 240 pages from Blurb, hardcover with the Pearl Paper. i used the Lightroom plugin for Blurb and it was easier than i thought from a workflow perspective. More to come about that.

I did, however, feel inspired to write a post about the occupation of the Central Building at the University of Amsterdam. Seems students are upset at the growing commodification of this university and education in general. The students foolishly believe that there are noble paths in pursuit of knowledge and that, say, art history is at least as valuable as a degree in business administration. This isn’t to suggest the irrelevancy of the latter; rather, that the former should be accorded the same respect.

More here in Dutch.

And Google Translate into English.

God speed!