free association

Software engineer Alex Mordvintsev, contributor to the neural framework behind DeepDream, has collaborated with his invention to create a rather beautiful (machine learning’s aesthetic can sometimes be slightly off-putting and nightmarish) and mesmerizing series of swirling vortices that pulls one into a zooming tour through Western art history. With the canon of this particular tradition at their disposal, the computer and Mordvintsev (I wonder how fair or honest it is to call the programme a tool and the user, the medium the virtuoso) were able to match colour, resolution and brushstrokes seamlessly to make a nearly perfect transition from one iconic painting to another embedded within.

ars moiendi

Though perhaps the provenance of the observance is a little dodgy, it seems that there is no better day than today to face and reflect on one’s own mortality and to cherish the time we have.
No Hallmark or hashtag holiday this, the phrase and its associated arts and practises memento mori, “remember that you will die” can be traced back to an anecdote recorded by a second century Christian philosopher, a writer named Tertullian (who was also responsible for making the heart the symbol of love), that during a victory parade celebrating a successful military campaign, a slave whispered to the conquering hero something to the effect to attend to the time after your death and remember you’re only a man—as the general was crowned with laurels.

sacred grove

We appreciate Boing Boing for acquainting us with a quite fine website called Monumental Trees that has aggregated over thirty-thousand outstanding exemplars, whose multilingual platform features a global map of venerable specimens, including one of our local favourites (all trees are great). The catalogue of this living project is growing and invites contributions of particularly aesthetic candidates—though I hope after seeing the destructive potential of fame and beauty, we have a more mature understanding of celebrity and what all Nature does for us.

copyfight

As is the case with our friend y2k, America’s period of no new works infusing and enriching the public domain has also entered its age of majority, with no published items released in two decades due to revisions to statue that strongly favour rather the artist and creator (and their adorning public) those studios, clearing-houses and franchisees that benefit from the ownership of exclusive liens and naming-rights.
While other countries and jurisdictions have allowed trademarks and charters to lapse gracefully—and to the public benefit as resources become freely available to schools and other institutions unconditional, the US has moved sharply the in the opposite direction, retroactively freezing the rollout of books and artwork (other than government created content) from the early 1920s onward—that is, if legislators don’t move to extend the option to renew again, which would not surprise me as it’s historically enjoyed bipartisan support since 1998 sweeping reforms that only benefited consumers and venue-operators by giving bartenders permission to unmute televisions or play the radio without fear of reprisal, though the days of a listening-tax are not far gone. Not only does America date itself when Irving Berlin, Jelly Roll Morton, The Ten Commandments and Adam’s Rib are reliable the only properties one can feel confident in airing and sharing and be reasonably certain that they’re not infringing on some ancient claim, it’s also what makes rentiership a viable business model and while making the world a little poorly probably just encourages others to flout the law through piracy.

genius mode or hang the dj

At some point in our lives (sort of like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy) I think all of us pass through that massive five storey night club on the banks of the Vltava in Prague’s old town. Maybe it’s a place that need only be taken in once but perhaps the newest resident disc-jockey on rotation for a few weeks now, however, is rather novel and propels our narrative of eventualities ahead closer towards its technological conclusion in the form of a untiring robotic arm that selects music and tweaks tees up the playlist with flair (see a short video demonstration at the link). It is unclear whether or not the DJ can gauge audience reception and excitement or can only base its play-list based on an insular algorithm, and KUKA (an adapted automotive assembly-line unit) is relieved every other hour by a human counterpart.