artificial intelligence

Equator used to be my favorite page on the whole instagram. It showcases old photos from pre-digital era. Initially it showed mostly photos from the equatorial regions, as the handle would suggests, ocassionally some from East Asia and other regions. I liked it because it showed the beauty of places on the equator in the olden days. Because we are so used to perceived old traditional European culture as beautiful, or those of East Asia, but very rarely are we exposed to the beauty of old traditional culture of South East Asia, before it became the cities they are today with the ugliness of modernity.

I also liked it because it reminds me of intentional photography. Most photos we see today are from social media and most of them either are for engagement or to seek attention to oneself. Photos on equator reminds me of the photography I used to know, the one taken with intention, the one that is taken to tell a story, the one that celebrates life.

But then, one day around the end of last year, the page posted a very weird archeology photo of a giant leaf with a bunch of white men around it. It was a very strange photo and it has a long strange caption explaining the whole archeology thing. Soon after it was posted people flooded the post with comments suggesting that the page was sold and was run by someone else who now post AI generated images. Not long after the post was taken down with no further explanation. And it keeps posting old photos although nowadays it clearly no longer focus on the equatorial region.

After that one AI generated image, I found myself examining each of their posts more carefully, with suspicion about whether it really was an old photo taken by a photographer or another fake one. An then soon after I no longer care. I no longer put likes on their posts like I used to, I just see and scroll past through. A lot of people today still don't see the problem with generative AI and I am unable to convince them that art is meaningless without the intention, without the process. That it is meaningless when it's not created by human. The point of people viewing old archival photographs is to see how people live in the old days, what it was like, how it might feels. What do you actually get by viewing a fake archeological leaf photo?

I fully realized that AI is here to stay and it's going to get even more sophisticated and I don't actually know what we should do about it. Then there's AI that is not genAI. AI is not not useful. AI is sometimes useful to make things efficient when you're already smart enough to know how to use it without wholly swallowing everything it tells you. But the way people are embracing it full on makes me think that we are totally heading to be a dumber and less humane society. And it is scary.

neon noir stray cat

i should have posted this one last year. when a friend sent me the youtube link the day the gameplay was released i immediately freaked out. it might be the best thing i've ever seen. first, whoever had the idea of creating a game with a point of view of an adventurous stray cat is a genius. second, as someone who loves cyberpunk genre, although it is not cyberpunk itself, the aesthetic and the visual detail are just the too good. people often misunderstood cyberpunk as merely neon and dark futuristic dystopian aesthetics, but as the word "punk" itself suggests, it isn't cyberpunk if there's no some sort of opposition against the authority. so i'd call it neon noir instead, and that's should be more than interesting enough for a story involving..a cat. sad thing is i won't even be playing this since the last console game i played was probably ps1 or 2 some decades ago. but i'd still enjoy the hype that celebrates stray cats in the best way.

of living spaces

one thing that i keep forgetting is how the things i have now were once the things that i had been dreaming of not so long ago. little by little new things i feel like i need to add to my mundane life starting to show up. the good thing is i never really is someone who's in a rush of everything. let life comes slowly. one small step at a time. moving on to the next step of dream living space is of course to have a better place. and certainly not in this city i currently live in. 

several key items to an ideal living space: 

1. flooring. to this day i still regret not changing my current floor. had i known i'd live here for at least three years, i would have insisted to change the flooring before i moved in. flooring is important. 

2. views. and openings as big as possible. i still don't know to this day how people could manage to live without looking out of the window. even in my current place that is middle class subsidized housing, views from the windows and balcony doors are the very first thing i consider. find as much as city lights and greeneries as i could get. and the windows are the front of the house. most of my neighbors treat their openings/balconies as their back area, as storage / trash place. i just don't get it. 

3. lighting. both natural and artificial. this one needs a way longer explanation. but good lighting sets the mood in a significant way.

4. proximity to amenities needed goes without saying. 

that being said, when i came across the videos of peng wei, a chinese artist living in chengdu, not only her art that caught my attention but also her working/living space. there are a lot of pretty images of people's living spaces that i see daily, but her space certainly stood out. big windows, big floor space to create things, good lighting ambiance, good views, even her "messy" tables and shelves are something i could see myself in. only things missing are cats and their furnitures. and most important is that it looks attainable to me. like it's not something that is too far to reach. i mean it is far at least for now, but not exactly impossible. well, let's see if life allows me to have nicer things in the future. 

pictures are screenshots from this video and this video. 

life is a career

"My philosophy is, 'living is life'. As long as I'm healthy, I am passionate about photography 'til I die. I will be curious 'til I die. No matter who we live with, we should be independent individuals. It's important to not depend on anyone. Running your own life is a career. Living itself is meaningful enough." - Yuriko Takagi
 

it was a sunny spring day in a classroom in a small town in central italy our professor asked us students to name three things that are most important in our life. one guy answered, "potato", which was a witty response that prompted a longer discussion. most others answered, "love" and "family" or something along those two. i, in just mere honesty and not attempting to be intellectual or anything, answered, "works or crafts to dedicate myself to", "a functioning city to live in", and the third one i can't remember.

that was seven years ago. and it still rings true to this day. those two are still what i'm searching for in life. some people are lucky enough to have find their "life", maybe through privilege or through serious hard work. i, on the other hand, am still on the journey of searching. and i don't mind it at all. to me this is life. the most important is never "family" or such thing. my upbringing didn't prompt me towards that trajectory. the third one i'd probably say now is "money", not for the sake of money itself but for the less burden it brings.

i have to say i'm sort of satisfied with the views of life that i have currently reached at this point of my life. they will of course keep growing and changing as life reveals more of itself. people can just judge as they may, heck i judge people in my own way too, but why care at all? the societal and cultural dictation that only allow one way of life over another is ridiculous. allowing ourselves to live in our own rules is surely more rewarding than suffering by succumbing to the expectation of others.

ps. personal relationships are of course important, as they are usually what teach you to be a better person. but relationships come and go, it might bring a deep profound joy one day and and utter sadness or anger the next day. i just don't think it should be the main goal in life, just let it come and let it go as it may. the only thing we can surely hold on to is ourselves.

ps2. remember the beaver.

paintings and cinematography

i have been watching a lot of videos on cinematography on youtube. on one that i recently watched, the panels are discussing on how they light night scenes: backlights, lamp posts, shop windows, gas light, wet down, and all those interesting things. and then one of the panel mentioned paintings by Atkison Grimshaw as his inspiration, on how it doesn't have to be monochromatic when it comes to lighting a period piece, how Grimshaw uses gas lighted windows and wet down (splashes of water on the ground) making his night scenes very much vibrant and not monochromatic. reversely i say, we can see right away a cinematic feeling out of his paintings. he uses of vibrant light but still depicts a somewhat sad landscape of the industrial towns.

i always feel somehow cinematography doesn't received the credit it deserved in general when it comes to movies. the public put too much recognition and celebration on actors and how much efforts they make for the success of a movie and too little appreciation on the more technical things behind the scenes. yes actors are the forefront of a movie but cinematography is literally what makes a movie. it dictates how a movie would look like. it would be ridiculous to put too much credit to a model in a photograph without much appreciation to the photographer.

orbit ever after

"i want more than just safety. i spend my whole life in here just going round and round and nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes. and nobody seems to mind."
 

short films are underrated. it's not every day you get a luxurious two hours of free time to enjoy a good story in a cinematic experience. i love this one particularly for how they put much attention to details on the production design and light. one of the opening scenes reminds me somewhat of the little prince. also, aren't we all constantly craving for that something to keep feeling alive?

luminarium

still on my current cyberpunk obsession mood, there was this traveling exhibition by architects of air, a group of artists from the UK led by alan parkinson, an artist working on inflatable structure transmitting radiant colors inside. now i've seen a lot of different versions of inflatable structure as a form of urban art, which usually comes as transparent space, but nothing quite like this. this one looks ugly and unappealing from the outside but once you stepped inside it was a complete outer space experience. when i was outside queuing in line to get in, i kept wondering what kind of lighting trick they use, turn out it was actually not as complicated as i thought. they use special translucent fabric and shot just some simple light source on several spots. it was a combination of the design of the space and the light cut-out that makes the experience of it. once inside i was surprise of how small the space actually was, from the outside it looked kind of gigantic. i was also surprised by how calming the whole atmosphere was, despite the striking colors. it was almost therapeutic. they did play an ambiance kind of music but it really was the light and the space that created the whole mood. now if only the audience care much more about the space itself rather than taking as many selfies as they could. i really am tired of complaining about living in a society which is really self-obsessed, where art has really been degraded into a pretty background to take pretty pictures. i hope this would change in the future. maybe in a million years from now.

cyberpunk dystopia

"humanity has spread to the stars. we set out like ancient seafarers to explore the limitless ocean of space. but no matter how far we venture into the unknown, the worst monsters are those we bring with us."


altered carbon is so far the only series which i started rewatching the first episode as soon as i finished the last one, while at the same time not giving a shit about the next season. it's a cyberpunk festivities came in the form of tv series. what more do you expect? i'm all about the cyberpunk aesthetic. although it's kinda disappointing seeing all the neon awful bend and wiring.

somehow it made me think how probably one of the reasons why i still continue going on living is that i'm curious enough to see what the distance future might look like with all the technological advance. whether all this fantasy would slightly become the new normal. i also would like to think that my whole life is basically to make me mentally trained (i wish physically too) to live such dystopian future.

one thing that it also made me think of, is that this is probably one of the rare moments when i think the man is more sexually arousing that his counterparts' female figures in sex scenes. i don't even like a too muscly hunky type of men's body. but it proofs my theory how men is attractive, sexually or not, because of his character. while women's just naturally have the aesthetically pleasing body type, it can be arousing if it's beautiful, no matter the character of the person.

loving vincent

"live longer, you'll see. life can even bring down the strong."


when i first noticed this movie, i think i never watched the complete trailer, but i knew it's a movie that's going to be made in the style of paintings. it immediately reminded me of shirley - visions of reality, which i wrote about and enjoyed much. so i thought it's gonna be in a similar way, or at least i thought i'd experience similar kind of excitement. turns out, it exceeds all my expectations. from the beginning to the end, i have never enjoyed each of every scenes of a movie as much as i did with this one. every single frame was hand painted, it's so captivating since the very first scene, i was kinda lost and i had to replay it again from the beginning as soon as i finished. even until the very end, the movie ended in the song "starry starry night" sung by lianne de havas, which closed the movie beautifully.

in fact, i stayed until the whole movie credit was rolled feeling like i appreciated so much all the artists and production crews involved in this art project. i watched several behind the scenes videos, i just couldn't imagine how excited the artists were working on such project while also at the same time feeling the excruciating process of it.

unlike shirley - visions of reality where they turn painting into movie scene with real actors, loving vincent was animated fully from paintings, although they first shot with real actors before each frames were later translated into paintings. i enjoyed the details of each painting. how they created rain effect with oil paints, for instance. and unlike shirley, where the movie were shot in static frames from the thirteen of edward hopper's paintings, in vincent the cinematography is dynamic and beautiful. the lighting effect plays great importance in each painting to make it not fall flat. my favorite were the night scenes, especially the one by the boat, where the lighting were minimal but so subtle. the flashback scenes painted in black and white were also a great play on light and shadows. and also unlike shirley, the storyline itself was much more simple. it makes the audience questions the whole thing but it's all closed nicely despite whatever conclusion we might had in mind. the fact that the story of his life was made in his style of painting somehow made me empathize more and in a way loving vincent van gogh even more. as written here, loving vincent is a movable feast of a film that illustrates why, after more than a century after his death, we continue on loving vincent. having said all these, loving vincent is definitely definitely on the list of the most beautiful movies i have ever seen.

a perilous city

i once wrote about how you could still feel the evidence of new york's past as a perilous city when you go down under its subway system. i stumbled upon these images on the internet and they really fascinate me. it reminds me somehow of the commuter train i used to take to go to campus back in my university day. it was in a real horrendous condition and i had so so many terrible experience riding it. but those trains no longer exist nowadays replaced by all full air-conditioned train that are suitable to transport human being. there are of course still many flaws but it was a very significant improvement from what i used to experience. i keep saying that i do have hope on this city no matter how much conflicts i have with it.

la muralla roja

i'm pretty sure i've seen the pictures of la muralla roja (the red wall) somewhere on instagram or pinterest but never really paid attention to it. and i think i always thought that it's somewhere in mexico because at a glance it resembles the architecture of luis barragán, the mexican architect, or something somewhere in india for its vibrant colors.

it's not until i saw it again here, that i realized that it's actually in spain! and it was by a spanish architect ricardo bofill which turns out to be also the architect who did la petite cathedrale, a residential complex in cergy-pontoise, which i'm familiar with.

had i known about this building before, i would have definitely paid a visit when i was living in madrid. i would most definitely accept the offer of my housemate to drive me to alicante, his hometown, which is very close to calpe, the town where this building is located.

i'm not usually drawn to color block but this one looks so beautifully picturesque like you can frame each angle as painting. the view from the inside of an airbnb in the building looks equally picturesque. this is the kind of architecture that i'm drawn to, the one that is humble and try to embrace the nature. simple but thoughtful. no gimmick and doesn't try too hard. and also, i think i'm starting to have a thing with the tone of soft pink aka salem *gasp*.

ps. all photos taken from RBTA, until the time i get to pay a visit.

insides

"Nothing in life will call upon us to be more courageous than facing the fact that it ends. But on the other side of heartbreak is wisdom." - from wish i was here



i guess the bright side of every heartbreak is always that you learn again to appreciate yourself more, and learn to love yourself more than you love anyone else. to learn again to tell yourself that you are good enough. which, for me is always a rather hard task, being brought up as a person with a very low self esteem. it takes effort.

one of the records that i keep going back to for that effort these days is insides by the mighty jon hopkins. i remember one day it was late at night in milan and i was in a car with a date driving and we were talking about music from electronic to classical music and we agreed that the best kind of music is the one that takes you somewhere else. and that good music is more than just listening to sounds but about an experience. then he mentioned about trying to create electronic music that is well structured and not just random samplings making cool sounds.

insides to me is a perfect example of a well structured one, like you need to listen to it as a whole album, track by track, and not merely just one or two songs. this writer from sputnik music pretty much sums it all up in a very beautiful writing. i think it's equally beautiful that you're able to write about such good music in such good writing describing everything exactly like how you perceived it. i'm always fascinated with good choices of words and writing. like the way he describes one song as "toying with a false sense of security", now that is a talent i wish i have.

in my much younger years i used to listen to hardcore music to find refuge from the harsh reality of life that i was living. but these days i identify myself with these kind of intellectually well structured music. it has a strong disturbing even claustrophobic sense that somehow stimulates your self confidence but it also has the melancholic sides of the classical melody that reminds you of the softer part of yourself.

so in the effort of finding the wisdom and the constant will of finding my own ground, i will keep in my mind what a friend told me a couple of days ago while pointing his finger right at my face, "you know how much i look up to you. and you have to always remind yourself that you worth more than you think you do."

visions of reality

after so long living in milan, it's just like around 2 months ago when i finally found the movie theaters that play alternative cinemas like what i enjoyed when i was living in paris. in fact, i never had any interest to go to any mainstream movie theaters either, and never been to one here. not that i don't enjoy going to see popular hit movies, but i just don't feel like it being here in this city. it somehow feels like a luxury, like i'd rather spend the little that i own on something else, like food (or drinks) for example. but since i rediscover the excitement of watching alternative cinemas, i enjoyed watching different movies from chinese to icelandic one, which was funnily dubbed in italian.

luckily enough this one here wasn't dubbed, so it's completely in english, and a little french. shirley - visions of reality is a movie where 13 of edward hopper's paintings was turn into a 3 dimensional scenes. what attracted me at first sight was how beautifully artistic the cinematography is. it really looks like painting somehow. they are both realistic but unrealistic at the same time. and the tones are just beautiful. the fact that the concept is turning painting into movie scenes is just too intriguing. the big name of edward hopper is surely promising.

to be honest i didn't really get what the movie is about when i was watching. early on i already knew that i would have to watch it at least once again to get it entirely. but i really enjoyed all of the 13 scenes with every details of them. what is so funny and so wrong at the same time is that somehow if i see the comparison of each scene with the original painting, i'm more visually drawn to the one of the movie scenes. which made me think again, like maybe it wasn't really a good idea to try to transform or more likely to copy an art from one medium to another. every medium stands for themselves for each of their own purposes.

beautiful people

it's been a while that things i posted are just travel journals. actually i usually write more about what inspires me, thoughts, books, movies, music. but it just happens that i travelled quite a lot last year and i haven't got the time to document everything properly even until now, which is like eight months later.

and suddenly this one popped up in my facebook timeline, posted by my favorite graphic blog, which i haven't open since agesss (what the heck have i been doing?). it's a video by michał marczak of the music by mark pritchard collaborated with the mighty thom yorke. i'm a sucker for crazy ethereal atmospheric graphic. these days i really wished i have my take on videography and i wish i have the time and the eagerness and the gadgets to start pick up and learn more about it. oh well maybe some time in the near (or farther) future.

a humble documentary

"i’m a person who like to postpone things. i see no reason for being in a rush."


in this self-centric society today where everyone is trying to get attention to themselves through various kind of social medias and in this fast pace modern day where achievement is seen as everything, watching saul leiter approach to life and to art is very much like an oasis to the soul. seen as one of the pioneer of colored photography in the 50s, he said "i mean i think i’m being sincere when i say that i’ve never been driven. i didn’t walk around feeling that i was an important. i had not spent my life feeling important. what does that mean? i was hoping to be forgotten. i aspired to be unimportant". 

i watched this humble documentary twice to take note and to remind myself to not take things too seriously. "i don’t know. i’m not supposed to worry about it. i’m allowed not to worry". i guess i'm just not the kind of person who is inspired by a 23 year old kid who invent apps and sold it for billions. or a successful architect who built an iconic building reviving a city. or the first woman of minority who won certain kind of award. but i'm more than inspired by people like saul or bill cunningham, who lived their life with such simple attitude, and for the love of what they are doing, they just live to create, not for achievement or recognition. not for other people but for themselves. in the end, what's not to love about a person who described himself as, "a lost and confuse person who sometimes uses camera, with a touch of intelligence, but not so much."

globe maker

i've always been obsessed with maps, any kind of maps. so reading this is kind of fascinating. not finding the suitable model of globe to gift his father, mr. bellerby decided to make his own. the journey of his research and globe-making down to such detail and perfection is very much impressive. now his globes are made in a small studio, all handcrafted. seeing all the behind the scene, it really looks like dream job to me, working with hands with all its attributes; maps, watercolors, seeking for perfection, in such cozy small studio environment.

salone e fuori salone, milano.

some images from the salone 2015 back then in april. unlike two years ago where i was in milan only for three days, now i got the whole week to choose which events i wanted to go. and after series of visits to the fuorisalone, surprisingly i enjoyed more the salone itself. it's like i got overwhelmed with the amount of independent designers things and when i got to the salone, i got to see a more mature finished design and it made me feel good. and also it kinda made me miss my job somehow.

no and faith

No was her name 
No was the lion that no one could tame 
But Faith was his name 
Faith came around with a smile on his face anyway 
He said, tell, tell me now 
Tell me the worry that knit up your brow 
She said, slow down this train 
Slow down the iron that runs in my veins 

But No kept her name 
No got so quiet, she put out her flame 
But Faith stayed the same 
Faith came around with that smile on his face the next day 
He said, follow me down 
Follow me down with your pick and your plow

 //wolf larsen

on assumptions

"I’m used to people making assumptions about me. It happens all the time, on so many different levels — based on race, sexuality, looks, gender, the clothes I wear. I used to be very offended by people assuming that I should be one way or another because of the way I look. They’re shocked that I’m from the South but don’t speak a certain way, or that I wear the kinds of clothes I wear, or that I could be an artist. Someone recently told me that I was ‘a new concept.’ These days, I use being seen as mysterious as a sort of shield or filter — and it’s reminded me to assume that everyone is multifaceted until proven otherwise. More often than not, questions about 'what I am' open up an interesting dialogue that’s helped me learn more about people, as they learn more about me. On top of everything, I’ve realized that I don’t want to be someone who’s easily figured out. So I invite the questions — I’m not offended by them anymore." — Dez'Mon Omega Fair, painter.

from here.

soft urban art

i've always been interested in urban space and how people interact with the city. and now that i'm studying urban space, in europe in particular, it has been a very inspiring study and eye opening of many spaces around the world and also so many aspects around the realm, not just the physical space, but also the historical aspect, social aspect, technological aspect, etc.

i've seen many types of cool urban art, which has recently getting more and more developed with advance technology. this one completely surprised me because it's made of "soft" material. sometimes photos could be deceitful so at first i couldn't believe that they are actually urban art hanging there in the middle of the city. but watching the video of the artist talk, janet echelman, it's just fascinating how she developed something that was "accidental" into something beyond imagination. i wish she would keep leaving traces of her art to many more cities around the world.

ps. now i definitely have to visit porto!