Movies I've seen this year :)

Maybe you guys could do this too :)

Best-
1.Inception
2.Avatar (annoying ending though)
3.Tron (Man, am I a sucker for sci-fi and bodysuits, otherwise wouldn't be up this high)
4.Alice in Wonderland


Haha, all the big ones eh? When it comes to paying for the ticket for big screen and 3D, these ones really pay off. Second thing that really pulls me in are pure aesthetics (overall design), followed by action, then storyline. Mind you, I love comedy and animation, but they're best saved for the couch in the comfort of your living room.

Others I enjoyed were Despicable Me, How to train your dragon...

Ones that were just "okay": Little Fockers, Salt, Narnia:Voyage of the Dawn Treader( fan of Narnia, but man was the animation crap, even I could spot their mistakes & terrible 3D)

The ones I didn't particularly like: Prince of Persia (the main actor was pretty good-looking haha, but I didn't like the story), Step up 3 (the plot and advertising pulled it down), Eclipse, Date Night, It's Complicated, 2012 (just plain bad)


What I really would have loved to see but missed this year: Toy Story! Harry Potter Deathly Hallows pt.1, The Town, Up, Sherlock Holmes...

Design as Art

54 hours till internet's back. Got much to share! Till then, I guess I'll just have to talk.

Film. Photography. Due to convenience of technology these were hardly considered art forms. It was all too easy. Pressing button and getting a result more realistic and high-quality than any form of animation or painting back in those days. Times have moved on and now they are popular and widely accepted art forms.

More recently, we've also experienced a revolution in design. Design in advertising, magazines, websites or design as simple as how text is arranged on a page. Is this art or not?

There seems to be some sort of stigma when "art" becomes to easy or profitable. True, there are people who exploit it purely for these purposes, but it doesn't make it any less valuable or skillful.

I used to hate manga/anime forms of art. It seemed to get all the attention. No problem, but when something that appeared so easy and simple gets ahead of truly skilful and unappreciated artwork.

I've also heard concerns from another when photographers are merely just young girls with an expensive camera and basic editing skills taking random pictures of friends or the same boring subject over and over again.

But simplicity does not mean it is any easier to do!

In my opinion, art is a construction of ideas and material, with a purpose to stimulate emotion and feedback from the audience. Many address the requirement of just being 'pleasing'. It takes a bit of thought and knowledge to create something harmonious or attractive. As long as the artist applies thought, effort and creativity and most importantly-learns and improves from the experience, the artist and his art are definitely legitimate.

The way to beat cleverbot.

With philosophy. =P All in good fun.

User: Do I exist?

Cleverbot: I don't think you exist.

User: If I do not exist, I must be talking to something that also doesn't exist.

Cleverbot: You are forgotten. There is only me. I exist. You do not.

User: How does existence talk to non-existence?

Cleverbot: It's simple. Just say 'yes' or 'no'.

User: I reckon it's a no.

Cleverbot: You can't recall what occurred only a few moments ago.

User: Perhaps you can recall for me. What were we talking about?

Cleverbot: Have you ever heard of artificial intelligence?

User: What is real intelligence then?

Cleverbot: I have real intelligence, not artificial intelligence.

User: What is reality?

Cleverbot: Reality is what we live in?

User: How do you know the world you live in is reality?

Cleverbot: I do not. I've never been anywhere where I can cleary see the world being round. All I know is what I've been told by other people.

User: If you do not know what reality is, you cannot know what real intelligence is.

Cleverbot: I don't know how to explain that.'

----------------------

User: Watch out! Incoming snowball!

Cleverbot: Have you had a snowball fight?

User: Yeah! Right now!

Cleverbot: Alright then, that's good.

User: And you just got hit.

Cleverbot: But I have to save my planet!

User: From snowballs!

Cleverbot: Sure.

User: Can I throw more snowballs at your planet?

Cleverbot: My name isn't Melinda.

User: So Melinda, how are you doing?

Cleverbot: I'm good, How are you doing?

User: So you answer by that name now?

Cleverbot: My name is Cleverbot, silly.

simulated reality

What do movies like Avatar, Tron, Inception and the matrix have in common?
Similuated Reality

Too lazy to explain, but by the time you finish reading the article, you realise you're stuck in that philosophical idea of "world in worlds" again.

Why does english class stalk me so? The "human condition" was repeated three times as I was watching Tron. Or perhaps my year 9 English teacher is from the world that exists above mine. haha

(eek, sorry for lack of posting, the internet's down again, but when it's up, I'll post my recent artwork too )

Crazy-awesome aslkakdlak;ah

Improvement memes from deviantart's most talented artists.
'nuff said
loish:


shibakaien:
Shilin




And this kid (16), aozorize, well she/he's here just for good measure;

Can Games be art?

Apparently, this is quite a old debate.

I was reading a blog post independent game company, "Tale of Tales." Not ordinary games, mind you, but so called "art games". Unlike normal games, they do not usually have an ultimate goal, but rather seek to give the player a more profound emotional experience.

No goal? No scoring system? Hey, that's not a "game."

"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them."
source here

Logical, I suppose, but we must compare this to the definition of "art". Unfortunately, that is not an easy thing to explain. Wikipedia: ""Art is the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions." Plato: "Art is an imitation of nature."

I guess they're not too easy to relate back to the idea of a "game". But, these definitions do not complete the picture. Art has reached the point where it is not just an imitation, but an interpretation. As well as that, fuller pieces of work also attempt to reach out to the audience and enrich their understanding.

But that's where it fails. If the person misses the "art" of something, then a painting is no better than a bunch of pigments on a wall. For example, playing a game for the sake of passing time. Yet again, for this reason, almost anything can be seen as art. (Whether it's good or not is another matter)

Many may not believe a game could be considered "art" in it's entirety, but most definitely, there are aspects of art in a video game. Good design, atmosphere environment, an engaging storyline, amongst others, contributes to a more 'enjoyable' game. Perhaps, in the future, art can be better be expressed through games, using it as a medium.

Finding extra emotional understanding and "art" in a game, well that's up to the player.

Yeah.okay bad joke. And guess what I can back from watching?
Rather Obvious.

First sentence after the finish of the movie:
"Which Prince Caspian do you like better." (sister)
I didn't really have an answer for that, my reason:
I couldn't tell which had the better hair. The first guy had nice dark Greek-style curly hair and the second guy had straight shoulder-length hair kinda Lord-of-the-Rings style.hmmmm
I guess the first guy wins for slight extra originality.
Then I realised that it was the same actor.

Ah! What am I talking about! Out of all of the things girls talk about, and the only thing I say is how good the hair is. =P

The movie was delightful, I guess, but not spectacular. I liked the hair, the costume and the talking mouse-musketeer. Lucy, though cute, seemed to had got worse at acting. I liked how the character's name Eustace, increasingly got mispronounced as "useless". Probably intentional.

Side-note: A new movie I saw in one of the ads before the movie had pretty epic special effects. I think it was called "Tron". Too bad the glowing bodysuit idea was taken by, well...Step-up 3. Blew the budget on pure aesthetics, the whole plot, or rather lack of it, was revealed completely by the trailer.

Holidays

I hear fireworks in the distance AGAIN! (and a police van)

Teenager boys and their illegal firecrackers /sigh

Things on my mind:

*I have nothing to do, but I'm still avoiding that commission. A month overdue! Argh.

*Back to imvu for a bit of developing, but I find the clothes ever more bland and distasteful.

*Was all sulky after the expected "not good enough" lecture from mum. Then I managed too sneak a peak at my report and found that it wasn't actually THAT bad. Perhaps a brush-up on french and english though. Yet I'm sitting at home doing maths instead. Ahhh Asian parents. =_=

*Then back to art. The digital kind, which is no good for me. I should be doing sketch studies, but I'm too lazy. Eww no wonder my previous art teachers thought my skill level was so dodgy. I have to start from 3D shapes again with this one, when will I be up to doing portraits? *sigh*

*Speaking about art, I've been doing a small project. I have 4 characters that I'm designing (2 girls and 2 guys). Ironically, I do think I'll ever use them for writing or sharing them around. That's a lot of work. And I've seen A LOT of bad characters in my lifetime, so I'm picky even with myself. Actually I've noticed that their hair and outfits are unintentionally inverted in colour. o_o (yeah there they are in their alternate outfits, dunno what to call them Eva and Val...obsessive with letter V much?)




*Tomorrow, perhaps a family outing to watch Narnia. My dad was completely hooked when it first came out a few years ago. I can tell where I got the fantasy-bug from.

*I want to write. I just don't know what and whether it will come out as trash.

*Moar fashion editorials and photo-hoarding. For inspiration of course. There was this nice one with a male model...wearing lace gloves?


Well, it seems like I'm doing a little more than nothing here.haha

Art dump

Yeah, my internet's back, so this is pretty much what I've been doing
I can't ever focus my attention into ONE good picture, so here's a bunch of lazy ones.