#simplification three-dimensional printing

[vriskakinnieaynrand]

without looking anything up:

south slavic dialect continuum: a dialect continuum is when each village speaks a little differently to the next village over. generally speaking, people will be able to understand those from the next village over, or a few villages away, but people on one end probably won't be able to understand people on another end. "ends" is a simplification, it's usually a two-dimensional space where linguistic change propagates and spreads, sometimes across the whole space but often not. later, generally with the advent of print, either a certain variety within the continuum became the standard language (as happened with english and french) or academics constructed an artificial variety, maybe optimized for comprehensibility throughout, to serve as the standard (as happened with finnish and estonian). the south slavic languages—well, most people don't know language families

gaussian distribution: bell curve. common in statistics. mathematically derived somehow. there are other distributions. i wrote this down somewhere at the office but it's 11pm

supercritical fluid: past a certain temperature / pressure, liquids and gases stop being different things. so you can decaffeinate coffee by putting the beans in supercritical carbon dioxide. the caffeine will dissolve into the fluid, and then you turn it back into a gas, and i don't know what happens to the caffeine but it's out of the beans. does it just do something else. hang on i'm looking this up. okay! i'm wrong about that, that's why it didn't make sense, you put it somewhere else and turn it back into a liquid. what happens if you turn it directly into a gas tho, can you dissolve things in gases

lapis lazuli: blue. comes from afghanistan. can be turned into a very expensive blue pigment traditionally used in european art for ?the virgin mary's robes?

the bentham-mill debate: i looked this up earlier to see if it was a term and now for correctness i have to mention act vs. rule utilitarianism, which i wouldn't have remembered otherwise. that's like, something undergrads argue about. when you get old and you've seen people fuck up both their estimation of acts and their application of rules badly enough to realize they can't be trusted with either, you're reduced to arguing about whether there are qualitatively higher and lower pleasures or whether it can be quantized. like, maybe writing long posts on tumblr isn't as pleasurable as jerking off, but maybe it's a higher sort of activity and therefore better, right?

beta decay: radioactive element ejects, fuck me, which one is it, helium nucleus

pointer: address of a value in memory. if you don't know what that means don't worry about it

monad: it's like a burrito. no, it's like a glovebox fume hood. you put something in a box and you operate upon the box instead of the thing. don't worry about it, nobody actually needs to know about monads, it's like 99% a meme

steel frame: you can make a building where instead of the weight of the building being carried by bricks, or wood, or mud, or whatever, it's carried by a steel skeleton. steel is much stronger than bricks, wood, or mud, so the skeleton gets to be smaller

ukiyo-e: "floating world". japanese ?middle-class? pleasure districts and the associated art style

colorspace: not a concept for which description is fruitful. use oklch and if your blends come out shit use something else

rectification of names: in confucius's home state, the name of which i don't remember, maybe it was lu, there was a nominal ruler, but power was actually held by the three families of whatever. confucius was sort of a resistlib about this, and said that for a state to be ruled properly, the first thing to be done was the rectification of names: names should accurately describe the things. it's like if trump moved the capital to mar-a-lago and everyone pretended it was still in washington. and talked about going to mar-a-lago on state business. what? washington is the capital. you can't be conducting state business in a place the government isn't. the names no longer correspond to the things

transformer architecture: i still haven't read the relevant literature but this was a big ML thing

redox: reduction-oxidation reaction. electrons go from one thing to another. i don't remember the details but they use this to make rechargeable batteries and various other things. i've sort of written this off as a place where terminology is confusing and historical and maybe someday i'll describe it in old timey sinologist english and everyone will think the bit has something to do with christianity

[mizgrownnonsense]

On Cultural Appropriation

(copied from an email I sent to a student, who asked about this as part of our “office hours”--thought tumblr could find it interesting) Thank you also for your question--please forgive the extra time I've taken to give it proper attention.

The question of cultural appropriation is certainly a complex one. 

Our general contemporary understanding boils down to: "do not take what isn't yours, and definitely do not use it disrespectfully," however, this simplification relies on certain absolutes (what does "yours" mean, what does "taking" mean?) that can feel confusing or impossibly, even unnaturally rigid.  

On "Owning":

The fact is that no artwork or cultural product is going to be a purely "authentic" in an essential way, because no culture is static and unchanging. All cultures have histories, with various ancestors and influences from whom they've adapted and translated their traditions. As the members of that culture live into the present, those traditions will keep adapting in response to the new cultures, artworks, and ideas that they come in contact with. I frequently say in my classes (paraphrasing the art citic, Stuart Hall), "when you have found something purely authentic, what you have really found is the end of your memory." Especially as our world expands, most artists today have come in contact with thousands of different artistic and visual traditions, which we both consciously and sometimes unconsciously translate into our work.

Accepting that human cultures are essentially syncretic, and that almost all of the artwork or cultural products we encounter are fusions or translations of other artworks or traditions, how do we navigate the question of "owning" something or "stealing" something?

I think it is also important to recognize that a relationship between a people and their traditions (artistic and otherwise) can be profound without being "pure." Native Americans in this country have a profound relationship to their ancestral lands that is felt through the thousands of generations who have become part of that ground and through the spirituality that connects their original, and identity-forming, myths to specific features of the landscape--whether they initially migrated from across the Bering Strait or not. Although African American women did not invent quilting, the tradition of quilt-making in the American south and the way that quilts were used to preserve stories, hide messages, and express creativity despite significant barriers to this kind of self-expression makes these quilts an important part of black southern visual tradition (consider the Gee's Bend quilts and some examples of African-American story quilts).

In this sense, we can think of "owning"  as the result of a profound relationship to a (visual, etc.) tradition or practice, based on an ancestral relationship to it; its contribution to one's sense of identity; its centrality to one's spiritual traditions, etc. 

On "Stealing":

Ideas (traditions, artistic styles, materials, images, etc.) can move from one culture to another in various ways. Though gifts (travelers bringing their culture's treasures to their host, or teaching their practice where they go), through imitation (travelers recreating what they've seen elsewhere out of admiration or curiosity), through assimilation (moving to a new place and adapting the traditions that already exist there, sometimes mixing them with their own), through conquest (one culture taking over the other, and absorbing what was there into their own culture and/or forcing the original inhabitants of that culture to assimilate into the new dominant one), through theft/misappropriation (forcibly taking artwork from a place or person and thereby changing its meaning through a change of context), etc.

Being aware of how this contact happens is the most important question to ask when Identifying whether we are looking at syncretism or cultural appropriation/misappropriation.  When you want to analyze a moment of cultural contact is to ask: who are the actors in this exchange? Who is in control of how, and whether, this exchange happened?

For example: In the case of Van Gogh's use of Japanese prints and brushwork technique to develop his own signature style (he translated their visible brushwork into thick oil paints and focused on the humble beauty of countryside and daily life in the same way Hiroshige did, actually copying some of Hiroshige's prints as practice: see here), We can see that Van Gogh did not have control over Japan's artistic production through political, economic, or other means. Japan was considered a relatively equal peer to France, and Van Gogh considered Hokusai and Hiroshige as artists equal to (if not superior to), even if he exotified them in the process. For their part, Hokusai and Hiroshige were freely sharing their artwork with the west, and had chosen to adapt western techniques of perspective in their own work as well. While Van Gogh was certainly "appropriating" Japanese technique, this should not be considered "theft."

By comparison, Picasso's "invention" of cubism was also influenced by another culture. Cubism is essentially the translation of three-dimensional African masks into two-dimensional paintings. However, Picasso encountered these masks in exhibitions of stolen artifacts (not given willingly, but forcibly removed from the palaces, altars, and homes of African people by European colonial forces, both out of curiosity and because the Europeans knew that separating African peoples from their sacred and royal objects would damage their sense of self and will to fight, aiding in their imperial conquest.) Although Picasso clearly admired the formal qualities of these objects, he did not see the people who created them as artists, famously saying in 1907: "African art? Never heard of it!" (”L’art negre? Connais Pas!”) At the time, France was exerting significant military, political, and economic power over African people, from which Picasso benefitted: he could claim African influences as his own without any africans contradicting him, because he had a privilege to be heard and respected that they didn't have. Furthermore, Picasso was exalted for his invention of a new form of art, making money and building his reputation, while the African people from whom he had appropriated these forms continued to be disrespected and in many places forbidden from making these for their original spiritual and political purposes. In this case, understanding this point of cultural contact as "cultural appropriation" and “theft” is clear.

As you navigate contemporary questions of cultural appropriation, ask yourself the following:

Who might have a profound, identity-based or ancestral relationship to this practice? 

Who is in control of the exchange? 

Does one person have political or economic privilege over the other? (I.e: white Americans over Native Americans, Black People, immigrants; academics over uneducated people; autonomous citizens over incarcerated, or institutionalized people?)

Does the culture from which the practice organization/that has a profound attachment to this practice have the power to refuse the exchange--what are the consequences to them of if they do refuse? (i.e: seriously impoverished nations may not be able to survive economically without the influx of tourism to their sacred spaces, ceremonies, and imagery)

Is someone benefiting--making money/building their reputation--from the practice they are borrowing? Is any of that money or acclaim being shared with the "owners" of the practice? 

Are the "owners" of the practice recognized as peers by the person borrowing it? Are they named? Referred to as artists? compensated? credited? Treated with respect? Or are they treated as ignorant, "accidental" producers of something only the borrowing artist and elite culture can understand and appreciate? 

Is the "borrower" of the practice considered the expert of that practice?

I'm happy to talk about this more if you have additional questions (as you can see, I have spent quite a bit of time with the subject). In the meantime, I hope this offers you some clarity, and some things to think about!

Best,

[myartville]

Artist of the Day

Krishna Reddy

SEA forms 1955 Viscosity on paper Print area size: 17.5 x 13 in

Born in Chitoor, Andhra Pradesh on 15 July 1925, printmaker and sculptor Krishna Reddy studied art at the Vishwa-Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal. From 1947 to 1950 he headed the art section at Kalakshetra, Chennai. Later, with the help of philosopher-writer J. Krishnamurthi, Reddy traveled to Europe, where he spent his most impressionable years. From 1951 to 1952 he studied art at the Slade School of Fine Arts, University of London.

In later years, he worked under Hayter in Paris as Associate Director of the printmaking studio Atelier 17, as well as in the studios of Henry Moore in England, Marino Marini in Italy and Ossip Zadkine in Paris. It was at Atelier 17 that he first began to develop his unique printmaking technique.

He pioneered and mastered the color viscosity process, in which a metal plate is etched with acid or prepared with machine driven tools to form several layers. Intaglio color is applied by hand and excess ink, especially from the upper layers, is wiped off. The remaining colors are prepared with linseed oil. Each color has a different viscosity so as to repel each other on the plate. These colors are then rolled on the plate, with the help of rollers of different degrees of softness, the hardest reaching the lowest layers. Each print appears as an individual multicolored image. An outstanding innovator and experimenter, Reddy sees the plate as a sculpted surface, and intaglio printing as a three-dimensional process. By varying ink viscosity and roller density, he has achieved colors of extraordinary complexity on the plate. Reddy`s discovery of the principle of color viscosity has greatly simplified technical processes while at the same time increasing the expressiveness and intensity of the image.

Reddy has written a comprehensive reference on the art of color printmaking, a book that doesn`t expect the reader to know a lot, but at the same time, doesn`t omit any technical detail. He talks about the necessity of simplification, of exploring the very essence of nature in one of the essays.

Awarded the Padma Shree in 1972, Reddy was also recently honored as one of the guest Invitees to the Silvermime National Print Biennial in USA. His works can be found in several private and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Albertina Museum, Vienna, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Krishna Reddy lives and works out of Paris and United States of America. courtesy of saffronart.com

[base-ball-coach-rq]

Make Your Own 3D Trophies

3D trophies have traditionally been one of the cornerstones of the graphic arts and design market, and with the advent of once again three-dimensional figuration techniques that fact partly became more prominent. Many commercial artists, printers and engravers make a large part of their livelihood out relating to carving cups, awards and other prizes for company contests, sports events and other be like occasions.<\p>

Changing technology<\p>

With the progressive micro-sizing and simplification three-dimensional printing software has been the contend with re modern the last decade in in particular, another tend has begun to head: DIY graphic artists. This term refers to individuals who, while not commercially active in the basketball court of logogram, relief method or engraving, although possess some knowledge of graphic arts and choose as far as dabble with them in their free of cost time, creating pieces such as 3D trophies for themselves ochry those complete to them.<\p>

Scope for DIY<\p>

For this rating of people - and magnanimously for those who have thought respecting giving the techniques a make strides, but did not know where to start - the knowledge that do-it-yourself 3D trophies and unallied digitally printed pieces are in a way easy to make will no doubt structure a pleasant surprise. In the way below, we decide seek to etch out (no make fun future!) some of the options those who seek en route to venture into this field on their own case rely after which.<\p>

Different techniques<\p>

Identically most readers in connection with this article will undoubtedly take, three-dimensional engraving and printing can be canceled through more barring one technique. The classic way of doing it is therewith rotary stigma, although this will probably not subsist the best custom for hobbyists or beginners, retroactively he involves relatively complicated procedures, heavy equipment and prestigious costs. A much more sensible say-so for this demographic will be laser glass sculpture, which can be done amidst considerably less resources and tools, is supported by far on the side intuitive software, offers to boot possibilities and is overall certain modern. Those who like to cut now glass can also opt to purchasing a sandblasting gun yellowishness machine, primrose-colored simply a frosting cream. <\p>

As abase as software is concerned, there are also rick in relation with programmes neophytes furlough use to create basic beginner 3D trophies. Some pertinent to the most popular are, of tide, the members of the CAD affiliation, which are especially designed so perform this type pertaining to task. The latest edition of Photoshop, fresh prelusive programme into the field of visual arts, also comes optimised for this elegant of tablature, and can therefore constitute a good option for those who already work at any cost the software.<\p>

Alternatively, in place of those who blowout not get on with graphic design software, there are a number of online websites that can customise and dimple their pieces inclusive of few hassle and without needing to bedevil in-depth knowledge. The ensemble in respect to these will be viable options insofar as a newbie hobbyist looking to young started, and it is heavenward to the fixed to choose which one inner self semblance more wealthy with. Access case of doubt, a quick resort to toward YouTube will set off up a series of tutorials rookies can melancholy and follow however coming in the clouds per their masterpieces.<\p>