In 347 BC, Plato established a Theory of Forms that regarded even conceptual inanimacies, as entities existing universally too, as independent of space and time. I understand that while distantly deriving roots from origins of western philosophical thought, that this not a concept that is really in line with a western train of thinking. It is to the best of my ability that I’ll try and apply this foundation to intent in a way that is as linear as possible.

In further establishment of this intent, I want to illuminate Nietzsche’s further support of this in saying:

“The beautiful illusion of the dream worlds, in the creation of which every man is a consummate artist, is the precondition of all visual art, and indeed, as we shall see, an important amount of poetry. We take pleasure in the immediate apprehension of form; all shapes speak to us; nothing is indifferent or unnecessary. But even when this dream reality is presented with the greatest intensity, we still have a glimmering awareness that it is an illusion … Men of philosophy even have a sense that beneath the reality in which we live there is hidden a second, quite different world, and that our own world is therefore an illusion. Schopenhauer  actually says that the gift of being able at times to see men and objects as mere phantoms or dream images is the mark of the philosophical capacity. Thus, the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.(Whiteside.15)”

If dictionary definition 1a under beauty lists:”a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight.” To what degree can that be extended beyond the literal into saying that any combination of qualities can reflect that universally ideal beauty. Plato knew of the orders, proportions, agreements of the spheres, and knew that the relationship between them, must too then, be a reflection of that same ideal. To what degree are we as humans then, held to the same, (in our universal perception of this)? How is the idea of a perceived beauty then a dilution of an underlying harmony existing most perfectly in the ideal,  the “dream world?”

After establishing this, I want to extend the idea of the “Form” to the relationship between entities, even people. If the tangible form as we know it, a “decaying, ephemeral copy of the ideal”(Magee, loosely p.27) What is to keep the ideal, both plastic and fluid abstraction from any degree of interaction, even if as just perceived in the mind? What if the ideal could then, theoretically hold reign over all of humanity in the shared psychological workings of human inclination (toward beauty as an example)? What if this dictates our thoughts and actions to a greater and more frequent extent than we realize?

What if the ordinary becomes beautiful when it best reflects that universal ideal? Would then, the measure of that beauty become based solely on it’s reflective properties? That despite the impossibility for the ideal to permeate the realm of the real, that the magnitude, even power, of an entity’s beauty is based on it’s distance from that ideal source. In this case, both the inherent beautiful qualities of the thing itself, as well as it’s existence in the now, with it’s relationship to others. Likewise, how is discordance or tension(again, as it is perceived) a resulting comprehension of a incongruous relationship between two or more entities?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned continually by the counter-reformation papacy because of his ability to create works that supposedly had the ability to illusionistically create a tangible sense of the supernatural.(Or at least come as close as possible) That the divine was made real, coming into “our” space.  To what degree then, is this the epitome of the reflective ideal, that these things can become, as possibly as the inanimate can be, actualities of what they propose to represent, and how are we to react accordingly?

The world’s density and complexity make it too vast a place to be anything less than a beauty that humanity will forever be completely unable to fathom in its entirety.

Years ago, as a kid I heard someone say that, unless I do something great over the course of my lifetime, or make some real contribution to humanity, the knowledge of my existence will be wiped away 100 years after my death. And as that little kid, this killed me to a good degree. To call it sobering at least, (I guess at the time, especially..)would have been an understatement. Eventually I got over it, but maybe that idea of being forgotten never really left. I think there’s something profound though about maybe being shown this again in the most literal of ways.

Southern Colorado is a place where the dust mingles freely with the air, never settling, where the wind only moves it around above the ground, making it tasteable, permeating really the whole spectrum of sensory input.. as if it’s trying to drag you down into it. Exposing you to the origins of your material being, and trying bring your early return to the same.* A curiosity of a place, where the adobe of buildings that rise out of it could have just as easily created themselves, had the world willed it.

In a country still in it’s relative infancy, compared on a global platform, the concept of 1000 years is one that’s difficult to really comprehend in terms of an American history that doesn’t span half that. As the oldest established existing community in the US, maybe there’s something to be said for the Taos, what they’re doing, and what they believe. There’s a good amount of talk about American resiliency, and the question of whether or not the American golden age has already come and gone. As far as the definition of “American” is concerned, the Taos might as well have their own dictionary number. And resiliency? They’ve been here a thousand years already, and sure as hell will they be here another thousand from now.

The Japanese believe, (regardless of differences maybe, in spiritual rooting) in the good of the state, a contribution to the public whole. Watching the Taos, and understanding their mentality surrounding their personal contribution as often nothing more than a facet, a support of the sustainability of their culture, allows for the dissolution of a personal fear that no mark could be made by the efforts of a single person.

So in this way, what’s already bigger than ourselves that needs our attachment, adherence, or contribution? What could not survive in it’s entirety without us? And how are together, with those collective wholes more important, more influential, and more resilient than we could ever be? *Gen. 3:13

I can’t wait to find out what it means to give all of myself to something.

Relationships and Interactions of Humanity and Technology

So recently, I’ve kind of been observing and mulling over those examples that really succeed in creating a technology that is derived and rooted in what I’m going to call “humanism.” Or really, this idea of understanding that the potential for a future in the evolution of technology lies in creating a technology that attends to human nature and instinct. Up to this point, largely, we have created technology to satisfy the use of technology. A means to an end, and exclusively that(most often). By this, for example, I mean that..we created CRT(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube) TVs because that was the only way we knew how to create a device that would achieve the need to get moving images into the American home. In this example, said need was achieved..but was still largely an inherently static entity for years, especially in regards to its relationship with the user.

Theoretically the power of technology is only going to grow, the question is how is that power utilized in ways that not only makes said power accessible, but applies itself to the human aspect of its being used? How does art play into technology to achieve this? Design?

For instance, why is there now probably a wii in probably almost every nursing home in America? What is it about the application of human intuition(infused with cultural exposure, to a good degree, and coupled with similarly cooperative software) to a technology that is now, decades old, that has made this product so successful in this regard? Because of this success, Nintendo saw sales figures that it couldn’t have fathomed years before, and couldn’t keep consoles on the shelves for more than a year after launch. So what have we learned from this industrial and interaction designers? Should you really want to make John Q. Shareholder a very happy man—integrate humanism into technology. And do it well.

In a similar vein, I think there’s an incredible potential for what’s now sort of an latent emotion in technology. This applies because of that emotion’s inherent ability to pull it’s origins out of humanity. (By this, I mean that an emotional reaction to something is rooted in the universal human psychology..but is something that is by no means universally applicable inside of the examples given.) As an example, luxury vehicle advertising campaigns have, for years, been trying to paint their respective brands as not merely methods of transportation from point “A” to point “B,” but as these entities that are almost alive in their ability to exhilarate, for whatever reason. This is emotion through technology. We as humans are not strangers to emotion. As something so deeply engrained into the fiber of our living, we know emotion when we see it..and when technology can harness this we take note. Why? Because we typically associate a culture of technology as something absent, typically, of emotion. When we find emotion in what we thought to have perceived as emotionally vapid, we perk up. This is why we “need” to buy said luxury car brand, when theoretically, any car that runs will get us where we need to be. This pays. Think of that one person, maybe, that you know who really loves their car. Almost to a point where there’s a sort of relationship with this inanimate object. Is that not emotion? Attachment, at the very least, but in either case, ask any car enthusiast why they love what they love, and the emotion invested into this sort of relationship becomes apparent. Even if its a 1969 Dodge Challenger, it’s “That hemi that gets me going..those 450 horses,” etc.

Albeit another gaming example, a good representation of this is Bethesda’s Fallout 3. I use this as an example because of the sheer attention Bethesda has put into creating what is, essentially, an immersive and interactive humanism. By painting such a dense and self-supporting picture of a post-nuclear holocaust Washington DC, that is so convincing, so believably bleak and hopeless, Bethesda creates for the viewer an incredibly dense platform from which, one’s imagination is free to jump.

As an example, even the teaser during pre-order season reflected this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxSdbSNckTQ

For example, (on a strictly personal level) I think that there’s almost something to be said for the creation of questions that go along with just playing through the game like: What is war? Where are we as a country right now? As a society? What do we value? What if those things were taken from us? How would we start over? How does human morality change under such a dramatically altered environment?(This is SO realistically frequent as a motif throughout..) How would we struggle to survive? Where do our priorities and even loyalties really lie, and how would we really act given such a situation? Would I really be the person that I think I am? What is human life? What is inhuman life-and how do we still have the potential for the elevation of ourselves over others that we dub “inhuman?” Even, “How did I get here, and how do I get out?”—By presenting these questions as given situations, with potentially heavy consequences, we as players are almost forced to evaluate our own condition, and apply through the eyes of the Lone Wanderer. For me, there’s a real emotion that goes along with these, especially when coupled with the sheer level of craftsmanship that is applied in the art direction, environment creation, etc(with some examples below).

The issue in all of this lies in the subjectivity of probably much of the above. While I think that maybe said examples are effective, (there are others who I know personally,) who would disagree with this. Additionally, I understand that maybe the examples I give are sort of a quantum leap. This being said, the trend I believe, will continue, has no choice but to continue, in this way. Too much money, and too much potential for a human interaction with technology, even if as a sales engine, is at stake.

Together Ms. Krall and Mr. Ogerman (who was absent; Alan Broadbent conducted the orchestra) treat songs as film-noir fragments in which everything remains ambiguous and unresolved. Ms. Krall doesn’t interpret lyrics in a literary manner. With her dark whispery alto, she slithers through songs in short stop-start phrases that sometimes reduce a melody to a single repeated note. One string of words may be elongated with an emphasis on a vowel or a scooped-up syllable; the next grouping may be nearly swallowed as she hurries to catch up.

The effect is to turn songs into mysterious stream-of-consciousness ruminations. Adopting a jazz singer’s prerogative, she turns standards (“Where or When,” “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” “Love Letters”) expressing familiar romantic sentiments into semi-abstract, personal reflections whose meanings may not necessarily coincide with — and may even contradict — the words as written.

At the same time Mr. Ogerman’s lush arrangements, with their cool, sighing choruses of woodwinds and strings, carry advanced chromaticism to the edge of dissonance. Instead of a harmonic happy ending, the typical arrangement fades out like a ghost in the fog. The combination of voice and orchestration sustains an undercurrent of erotic tension fraught with foreboding. The truth remains hidden. That aura of ambiguity applied even to those numbers, like “P.S. I Love You” and “A Case of You,” that Ms. Krall sang while accompanying herself on piano, without the orchestra.

The concert’s somber mood was interrupted by some moments of hard swing (“ ’Deed I Do” and “I Love Being Here With You,” the latter prefaced by an extended stride piano solo) in which Ms. Krall’s emphasis on vocal sound over verbal elucidation was even more pronounced. Yes, on one level, Ms. Krall is a middle-of-the-road pop-jazz diva. But just below the surface lies an interpreterwho is talking to herself in a private language that is all about rhythm.