Cyberpunk: from then to now

 In some of my previous posts, I have mentioned this artistic genre and my interest in it. But I decided to research mor in depth, since as it will be greatley involved with my studio work.

-Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting that tends to focus on the society of the proverbial "high tech low life"; featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as information technology and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

One of the most well know exhamples of this is the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", better known as Blade Runner; George Orwell's "1984" falls into the same category.

The running theme in works of this style is the Dystopian future and need of rebellion to return to a peaceful and just society.
This kind of story line not only occures in films but in gaming as well, in titles such as Fallout and Half Life.

Cyberpunk has also evolved and found its way into figuartive art andfashion design.

 

Cyberpunk now has now evolvrd intoa cultural trend, reffered to as Cybergoth,with its own style and music, expressing the querkyness and oddity of the genre itself.

 

Design Fiction: Alternate Worlds

As mentioned in a previous post design fictions focus around narrative and storytelling, most of the time creating an entirely different universe from our own. In fact, its extremley common in fantsy and scifi works, as we take Middle Earth from Tolkien's Hobbit, or perhaps more recently Westeros from George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones.

 

With this in mind, its interesting to think how many fictional universes have been created since the begging of fiction work as a whole. 

If we analyse the previously mentioned works of Phillip Pullman, we notice that the story unfolds in a universe almost completley pararel to our own, but with major diffrences that underline its almost alien qualities. The buildings and locations described are mostly the same as ones that exist, but with major architectural characteristics; machinery and mode of transport function in a mechanical manner, poewred by electricity and otherworldly forces; and in this new Earth, the existance of a kingdom ruled by sentient polar bears, the Pansebjorne.

The plot of the books themseves focus on the concept of the reality of other worlds, universes conncected by a subsance called Dust. These worlds intertwine and connect and the similarities between many of them and ours is uncanny. 

We see something very similar in the 1982 film Tron, in which the protagonist, owner of an arcade, develops new technology that allows him to eneter the Grid, the progammed world of the arcade game Tron, revealing a world with its own social system, classes, justice system and with a completly different biology, of both the enviroment and the characters them sleve, no longer organic beings but lines of code that disintigrate into pixels when terminated.

Looking at these two completley different works of fiction, and their own universes, we can see how the both translate extremely well into the Multiverse Theory

-The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of finite and infinite possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them.
The various universes within the multiverse are called "parallel universes", "other universes" or "alternate universes."

With this in mind, altough childish, the possibility of worlds like Westeros, Middle Earth and the Grid being actual existing universes is an exiting and inspiring though, that stimulates new possibilities in creating fictonal work.

Specific Objects

In this lecture, we spoke and analysed the works of Donald Judd, american minimalist sculptror who blurred the line between sculpture and painting.

- Donald Judd is often described as one of Americas' foremost minimalist sculptors [...] but he himself neither accepted the term minimalist or considered his work to be part of the sculptural tradition.

In 1965, during his crtitic careed, he published an influential article entitled "Specific Ojects" published in Arts Yearbook 8: Contemporary Sculpture.

Half or more of the best work in the last few years has been neither

painting nor sculpture. Usually it has been related, closely or distantly,

to one or the other. The work has been diverse, and much in it that is

not in painting and sculpture is also diverse.

The new three-­‐dimensional work doesn’t constitute a movement,

school or style. The common aspects are too general and too little

common to define a movement. The differences are greater than the

similarities.

-Donald Judd "Specific Objects" Arts Yearbook 8: Contemporary Sculpture

Design Fiction: Visual Styles

In a friday evenig seminar, we briefley spoke about fictinal designs, in particular Steampunk and Cyberpunk; two genres that I found myslef draw to during my school years.

Steampunk:
-Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Steampunk may, therefore, be described as neo-Victorian. Steampunk perhaps most recognisably features anachronistic technologies or retro-futuristic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art.

Cyberpunk:
Cyberpunk, a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting, tends to focus on the society of the proverbial "high tech low life"; featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as information technology and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
Cyberpunk plots often center on conflict among artificial intelligences and among megacorporations, and tend to be set in a future Earth, rather than in the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction.

I became interested in Steampunk when I was encouraged to read Phillip Pullman's series "His Dark Materials", a trilogy the soon became one of my favourites. The style of writing is so vibrant that the world painted itself, and the visuals it created have been some of the most influential in my work.

 

Cyberpunk, however, is the style I'm most interested at the moment. I'm fascinated by the aesthetic and the narrative behind most cyberpunk orentated works, one of my favourites being George Orwell's 1984 and Blade Runner.

 

I intend to use this genre in my studio work.

Masks: Rituals and Theatre

As part of a studio project, I took refrence from masks. Coming from italy, masks are an important part of my countries theatrical history. So I decided to briefly research it.

Masks were orginally used for religious rituals since prehistoric times, but as everything else, it evolved into an object rapresentative of the theatre.

 

Masks can be found in every corner of the globe, and are a vital part in its artistic history.

In Europe, mask where first used in greek thetre to both interpet the character and amplify the dialogue so the sound reached every area of the theatre. 

In italian history, a mask originated in every region of the country, and each mask was interpreted as a character in various folkoristic comedies. Some of the most well known masks are Alrecchino (Harlequin) and Pulcinella, originating from Milan and Naples rispectivley.

 

I we move across the globe, we find that masks are more used for traditional purposes, religious events or celebrations, and each continent has its own characteristic mask. 

In sub-saharan Africa, masks ar an essential component in ritualistic dances and religious rituals, most representing humans or animals. Different regions have different styles and meanings.

 

In Asia, masks represent gods and demons, but are mostly used in the theatre, to reinact ancient legends and myths.

 

In America, the natives used masks to speak to animal gods and to perform rituals.

As we can see, masks are and have been a excellent medium to expolore, study and understand a country's history and culture; from religion to entertainment.

Digital Reality: Blurring the lines between nature and codes

While listening to music while drawing, I came accross the music video for David Guetta's "She wolf". Although the music is much to be diesred, I found the video quite interesting.




 

The visuals and tone of the clip, dark and cold, somehow fit very well with the track. But what is perhaps most striking is the relationship between the enviroment and the digital distortions that occur throughout the video.

I searched for articles reggarding the blurring of the lines between nature and digital reality, and surprisingly found very little, but I will carry on in hopes of finding something with an accademic background.

I believe that in a creative setting, this would be a really interseting concept for perhaps a novel or a graphic novel, as it induces to think about the enviroment from a different point of view and forces the creator to think outside the box. I will certainly try to intoduce this in one of my presonal projects.

Japan's Monsters

In this lecture, we spoke of Japanese culture and aesthetic, how its consumerism has affected society and its appeal to western media.
The focus of the lecture was to establish the line between "Cute" and "Monstrous", a line that's very blurred when we look at a piece of animation like my Neghbour Totoro:

 

Although the characters may look soft and with a sunny disposition, they all have certain features that render them slightly morbid and disturbing, like the Catbus as we see above.

The "Giant Monster on the loose" genre is also significant in japanese entertainment, as one of the most famous "Giant Monster" film, Godzilla, now a clut movie, is originally Japanese.

This genre, though, emerged also in american filmaking, as we see with King Kong.

With this in mind, it easy to see the meaning of Geissbhuler's Pease Poster.

Speedpainting

During my struggle to gain interenet visibility, I decided to create a YouTube channel and upload speedpainting videos.I go introduced to speedpainting videos during my early studies and I've always found them an excelent source of inspiration.
A speedpainting is a video in which an artist records themselves creating a digital or traditional drawing or painting, speeding it up and editing the footage, creating a record or their creative process
Here are just a few examples by popular YouTube artists:

SeaSaltShrimp:


                                                                                                                                                                 
Mary Doodles:



                                                                   
Vivziepop:

Animation: a History

"Animation refers to the creation of a sequence of images—drawn, painted, or produced by other artistic methods—that change over time to portray the illusion of motion."
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Zeotrope:
Invented by William Geroge Horner in 1834.
Injected movement into the still image by creating a succession of still onto a round base and, thanks to the fast spinning motion, induced movement, or rather, animation.
The zeotrope allowed a multiple audience.

 

Contemporary zeotropes can be found at Pixars Studios and Studio Ghibli:

Rotoscope:
Invented by Max Fleicher in 1915.
it was a device used to trace live action

 

It was complicated to use due to the speed of the capture; it was also hard to draw smooth and life-like movements.

Research:

Cell Animation:

Invented in 1915.

It was easier to produce with more stable results; fluid animation.

Research:

Postmodern: The Fourth Wall

One of the characteristics that defines postmodern work is the concept of breaking the fourth wall, a "practice" which consists of breaking the so called wall between the spectator or viewer and the piece of work being shown. 

This concept follows the phylosophical ideologies of Denis Diderot but the fourth wall illusion is often associated with naturalist theatre of the mid 19th century.

As mentioned, the fourth wall is the immaginary wall at the front to a stage in a traditional three wall box-ste, through which the audience sees the play. This concept applies to any from of entertainment, including books, comics and videogames in which the charachters talk directly to the reader or player.

When we talk about comic books, the character most famous for breaking the fourth wall is Marvel's Deadpool:

Other than being a generally complex character, despite being famous for his outgoing, annoying and at times rude personality, Deadpool and the storyline that follows him faces other deep concepts such as death and how man reacts to it, self-awareness and the descovery of one's true nature and reason of existance, self-conflict and awareness of ones flaws, and the multiverse theory.

Here are some examples:

In animation we see the breaking of the fourth wall in the Loony Toons short "Duck Amuck", in which Daffy Duck, the protagoinst is forced to adapt to the constantly changing scenerey that the animator creates. 

Creepy and Surreal: The Uncanny

In this lecture we faced the topics of Surrealism and the Uncanny, two very interesting topics when applied to art.

As explained, there's a substantial difference between surreal and uncanny.
Surreal is something that is distorted and strange but the viewer sees it straight away. For example:

But Uncanny is something equally strange but the viewer can't grasp it right away:

For an Uncanny effect we can distinguish something strange about something familiar from something strange added to something familiar.

The Uncanny is more disturbing than surprising.

We see this in E.T.A. Hoffman's "Sandman"

Nathanael, the hero, first encounters the Sandman in the form of a grotesque lawyer, who performs alchemical experiments with his father after Nathanael and his sisters have gone to bed. One night Nathanael hides and sees what's going on. But he is discovered, and nearly has his eyes burned out with coals. He escapes but, subsequently, his father is found dead after an accident with an experiment.

"Don't you know?" asks the unfortunate hero's nanny. “[the Sandman] is a wicked man who comes to children when they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand in their eyes, so that they pop right out of their heads all covered in blood, and then he throws them in a sack and carries them off to the half-moon to feed to his little children; they sit there in the nest, and have hooked beaks like owls, which they use to peck the eyes out of the heads of naughty children."

This Stop Motion Animation is based on the Gothic Horror Story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and features carved wooden puppets

The Uncanny is a conceptual point in a graph created by Masahiro Mori entitled the Uncanny valley. In this graph we see how the line move between the realism of an object, or in this case a person, and the empathic response of the viewer:

This is also explained in detail in a video created by Vsauce on Youtube: