Everything is Interesting
The dolly zoom effect is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice-versa.
Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.
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The Ken Burns effect is a popular name for a type of panning and zooming effect used in video production from still imagery. The name derives from extensive use of the technique by American documentarian Ken Burns. The technique predates his use of it, but his name has become associated with the effect in much the same way as Alfred Hitchcock is associated with the Hitchcock zoom.
The name ‘The Ken Burns Effect’ was used by Apple in 2003 for a feature in its iMovie 3 software. The feature enables a widely used technique of embedding still photographs in motion pictures, displayed with slow zooming and panning effects, and fading transitions between frames.
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Pickover stalks are certain kinds of details to be found empirically in the Mandelbrot set, in the study of fractal geometry. They are so named after the researcher Clifford Pickover, whose ‘epsilon cross’ method was instrumental in their discovery. An ‘epsilon cross’ is a cross-shaped orbit trap, which is a method of coloring fractal images based upon how close an iterative function, used to create the fractal, approaches a geometric shape, called a ‘trap.’ Pickover hit on the novel concept of looking to see how closely the orbits of interior points come to the x and y axes. In these pictures, the closer that the point approaches, the higher up the color scale, with red denoting the closest approach. The logarithm of the distance is taken to accentuate the details.
Biomorphs are biological-looking Pickover Stalks. At the end of the 1980s, Pickover developed biological feedback organisms similar to Julia sets and the fractal Mandelbrot set. He described an algorithm which could be used for the creation of diverse and complicated forms resembling invertebrate organisms. The shapes are complicated and difficult to predict before actually experimenting with the mappings. He hoped these techniques would encourage others to explore further and discover new forms, by accident, that are on the edge of science and art. Pickover’s biomorphs show a self-similarity at different scales and illustrate a significant feature of feedback in dynamical systems. Real systems, such as human beings and mountain ranges, also show self-similarity at different scales.
Helmholtz [helm-hohlts] resonance is the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, such as when one blows across the top of an empty bottle. The name comes from a device created in the 1850s by Hermann von Helmholtz, the ‘Helmholtz resonator,’ which he, the author of the classic study of acoustic science, used to identify the various frequencies or musical pitches present in music and other complex sounds.
When air is forced into a cavity, the pressure inside increases. When the external force pushing the air into the cavity is removed, the higher-pressure air inside will flow out. However, this surge of air flowing out will tend to over-compensate, due to the inertia of the air in the neck, and the cavity will be left at a pressure slightly lower than the outside, causing air to be drawn back in. This process repeats with the magnitude of the pressure changes decreasing each time.
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Shutter Shades are a design of slatted sunglasses commercially available since the 1980s, designed by Alain Mikli, a French designer of high-end handmade eyeglasses and accessories. Instead lenses, the design is characterized by its ‘shutter’ motif, which is part of the frame, and are marketed as suitable for both men and women. Depending on the design, Shutter Shades may not function as sunglasses; although some models contain UV resistant lenses, many do not, and only feature a series of horizontal plastic ‘shades,’ which neither provide protection for the eye from UV light nor prevent a substantial amount of light from entering the eye.
First available in the 1980s, nicknamed ‘Venetian Blinders,’ a then-popular design of louvered eyewear were featured in the music videos for ‘Glittering Prize’ by Simple Minds in 1982 and ‘Obsession’ by Animotion in 1984. Alain Mikli made a contemporary custom design for Kanye West, again influenced by the fashion of the 1980s. West popularized the glasses in the music video for ‘Stronger’ in 2007.
Rustic buses are old artisan modified buses used in rural Colombia and Ecuador where they are known as chivas (kid goats) or escaleras (ladders). They are used as public transport and more recently used as party buses in both countries. These are varied but characterized for being painted colorfully (usually with the yellow, blue, and red colors of the flags of Ecuador and Colombia) with local arabesques and figures.
Most have a ladder to the rack on the roof which is also used for carrying people, livestock and merchandise. They are built upon a bus chassis with a modified body made out either metal or wood. Seats are bench alike, made out of wood and with doors instead of windows.
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Commercial graffiti (also known as aerosol advertising or graffiti for hire) is the commercial practice of graffiti artists being paid for their work. In New York City in particular, commercial graffiti is big business and since the 1980s has manifested itself in many of the major cities of Europe such as London, Paris and Berlin.
Increasingly it has been used to promote video games and even feature prominently within them, reflecting a real life struggle between street artists and the law. Commercial graffiti has created significant controversy between those who view it as an effective medium of advertising amongst specific target audiences and those who believe that legal graffiti and advertising using it encourages illegal graffiti and crime.
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Mr. Brainwash (‘MBW’) is a pseudonym for Thierry Guetta in the film ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop,’ directed by Banksy. Guetta is presented in the 2010 film as a French citizen who now lives in Los Angeles, having been a proprietor of a clothing store and videographer who evolved into a street artist and gallery artist, influenced by the street artists he documented through video over the years.
According to the film, Guetta was first introduced to street art by his cousin, the French street artist, Invader. The film includes authentic documentation of Space Invader, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and other well-known street artists at work on the streets, and is directed by Banksy with significant participation from Fairey.
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Four-on-the-floor is a rhythm pattern used in disco and electronic dance music. It is a steady, uniformly accented beat in 4/4 time in which the bass drum is hit on every beat (1, 2, 3, 4) in common time. This was popularized in the disco music of the 1970s and the term four-on-the-floor was widely used in that era: it originated with the pedal-operated drum-kit bass-drum.
Many styles of electronic dance music, particularly those that derived from house and techno, use this beat as an important part of the rhythmic structure. Sometimes the term is used to refer to a 4/4 uniform drumming pattern for any drum.
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The Wall of Sound was an enormous public address system designed specifically for the Grateful Dead’s live performances by audio engineer Owsley ‘Bear’ Stanley. Used in 1974, the Wall of Sound fulfilled the band’s desire for a distortion-free sound system that could also serve as its own monitoring system. The Wall of Sound was the largest concert sound system built at that time.
As Stanley described it, ‘The Wall of Sound is the name some people gave to a super powerful, extremely accurate PA system that I designed and supervised the building of in 1973 for the Grateful Dead. It was a massive wall of speaker arrays set behind the musicians, which they themselves controlled without a front of house mixer. It did not need any delay towers to reach a distance of half a mile from the stage without degradation.’
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Space art is a general term for art emerging from knowledge and ideas associated with outer space, both as a source of inspiration and as a means for visualizing and promoting space travel. Whatever the stylistic path, the artist is generally attempting to communicate ideas somehow related to space, often including appreciation of the infinite variety and vastness which surrounds us.
In some cases, artists who consider themselves space artists use more than illustration and painting to communicate scientific discoveries or works depicting space; a new breed of space artists work directly with space flight technology and scientists as an opportunity to expand the arts, humanities and cultural expression relative to space exploration.
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American artist, Frank Pietronigro, is co-founder of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium. The organization was founded in 1999 by Laura Knott, Lorelei Lisowsky and Frank Pietronigro. Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC) is an international space arts organization dedicated to fostering greater access for artists to space flight technology and zero gravity space through the creation of international partnerships with space agencies, space industry entrepreneurs, arts and science organizations and leading universities.
ZGAC is the first organization of its kind, based in the United States, that is facilitating parabolic flight projects that will help in the international effort to set the stage for teams of artists to have permanent access to space transportation systems including the International Space Station. ZGAC supports arts, humanities and culture in space education, international outreach and conference programs that are being organized as a way for artists, from all over the globe, to affiliate with us and experience the possibilities of collaborating with space flight technologists.
The Daily Omnivore 