Friday, August 31, 2007

One soul in the crowd II

Just an improved version of One soul in the crowd. This was never a blog about perfectly finished concepts or images ;-) that's why is a blog.



No Crowd that has occurred
Exhibit—I suppose
That General Attendance
That Resurrection—does—

Circumference be full—
The long restricted Grave
Assert her Vital Privilege—
The Dust—connect—and live—

On Atoms—features place—
All Multitudes that were
Efface in the Comparison—
As Suns—dissolve a star—

Solemnity—prevail—
Its Individual Doom
Possess each separate Consciousness—
August—Absorbed—Numb—

What Duplicate—exist—
What Parallel can be—
Of the Significance of This—
To Universe—and Me?

Emily Dickinson, "No Crowd that has occurred".

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Continuous flower II

Before, my image was a bright sight of a continuous flower; right now: self-questioning; less optimistic?

Resembles Life what once was held of Light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute Self -an element ungrounded-
All, that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?-
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling Life and Death?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "What is life?"



Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Broken sky

This heart that broke so long—
These feet that never flagged—
This faith that watched for star in vain,
Give gently to the dead—

Hound cannot overtake the Hare
That fluttered panting, here—
Nor any schoolboy rob the nest
Tenderness builded there.

Emily Dickinson, named after the first line.


Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Dark night



Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication;
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still!
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did:
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

So two nights passed: the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,—
For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do!
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?
To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Pains Of Sleep".

Monday, August 27, 2007

Big confusion

Until today it was like flowing, like a river of images slightly changing until found what I specifically looked for, or close to it. Now the flowing is interrupted, my mind doesn't know what to find; it must be what in artists is a creative block, but... I've never been enough interested or obsessed with evolutionary art enough to have a creative block.
Since today nothing is sure. And this image with three pseudotextures, straight lines, curve lines, warm colours, and cold colours (and ugly) talks enough about a particular moment in which I just went tired and saved the work; many ways to go, not one taken for sure.
The results will improve in the future, I guess, but now, I posted this ugly thing... at least it represents how the day has been.

Cristian.


Sunday, August 26, 2007

Sunflower in the wind



You can click the name of the song in this post and the previous to go for a video.

Lately the relation between the EvoArt images and the poems/songs seems to became obscure somehow, not quite clear at the first glimpse, but... look, it is really there as it was :-) Yes, quite peaceful still. Yesss. :-D

This is the springtime of my loving-
The second season I am to know
You are the sunlight in my growing-
So little warmth I've felt before.
It isnt hard to feel me glowing-
I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles-
Flee from me keepers of the gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes
It is to you I give this tune.
Aint so hard to recognize-
These things are clear to all from
Time to time. ooooh...

Talk talk-
I've felt the coldness of my winter
I never thought it would ever go
I cursed the gloom that set upon us...

But I know that I love you so
But I know that I love you so.

These are the seasons of emotion
And like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion-
I see the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient-
Upon us all a little rain
Must fall.
Just a little rain?
Ooooh, yeah yeah yeah!

J. Page - R. Plant, "The rain song" (Led Zeppelin).

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Far away over the clouds

I like this kind of images, because they are not really common in evolutionary art. Well, but aside from being rare, do not look quite well. Anyway...




Hey lady -you've got the love I need
Maybe, more than enough.
Oh Darling Darling Darling, walk a while with me
Oh you've got so much... So much... So much...

Many times I've loved - Many times been bitten
Many times I've gazed along the open road.

Many times I've lied - Many times I've listened
Many times I've wondered how much there is to know.

Many dreams come true and some have silver linings
I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold.

Mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing
Many many men can't see the open road.

Many is a word that only leaves you guessing
Guessing 'bout a thing you really ought to know, ooh!
You really ought to know...
I really ought to know...

J. Page - R. Plant, "Over the hills and far away" (Led Zeppelin).

Friday, August 24, 2007

Clouds of a new day



As in the dusty lane to fern or flower,
Whose freshness in hot noon is dried and dead,
Sweet comes the dark with a full-falling shower,
And again breathes the new-washed, happy head:

So when the thronged world round my spirit hums,
And soils my purer sense, and dims my eyes,
So grateful to my heart the evening comes,
Unburdening its still rain of memories.

Then in the deep and solitary night
I feel the freshness of your absent grace,
Sweetening the air, and know again the light
Of your loved presence, musing on your face,

Until I see its image, clear and whole,
Shining above me, and sleep takes my soul.

Robert Binyon, "As in the dusty lane to fern or flower".

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

in this night



This endless night, by the phone, with hopes of hearing some particular beloved voice; and by the chatting window, with hopes of reading the words of some particular beloved person. And my memory of a friend, long time ago, in a moment of heartbreak saying the surprising words of pain: "how hope can be this destructive!", he introduced me to the book "Sickness unto death", interesting logic, but... in this night, no philosophy, no literature brings to me the words I want to hear or read, those belong to the most beloved, absent.
One day, I might regret of this post, but, what the hell, I'm simply heartbroken! I've been seen in my town suddenly, unavoidably crying in buses, cabs, waiting lines, people's homes, anywhere the pain took me with my mind blank, in a surprising explosion of agony. Who am I to interpose between others and a pain that surpasses me? So no difference between don't being able to avoid crying in public, and declaring it in an unfamiliar blog. Simply heartbroken. Possibly soon will go back to show only half-finished cheap artwork. I might regret my unnecessary sincerity of today... the point that matters to me: how I overcome this night? Have done so much that became works of love lost, I've been feeling physically dying, literally dying, breathless in the floor trying to get air, for so many days. No help can come from others. And I don't want to punish myself or anyone, because I know I have no guilt, but anyway a stabbing idea comes in and out: "That was your last opportunity for true love". And I throw myself to the freezing floor looking for better air, but nowhere is air for me. No-one can help, everything is an escapism outside your pain in the heart, and you get worried by the wounds, if they will be hardening your heart, if they will change it. I don't want pity, don't want comprehension; I want my mind back, and my heart restored. Cannot use my mind, because my heart is drowning in its fluid. No-one can help. There's only one who can achieve a miracle. She is my beloved, she is unique. She is absent by choice, and not be back.

in this night, in this world
the words of the dream of the dead woman's childhood
is never that what one means
the native language castrates
the language is a knowledge organ
of the failure of all poem
castrated by its own language
that it is the organ of the recreation
of the recognition
but not the one of the resurrection
of something as a negation
of my horizon of Maldoror with its dog
and nothing is a promise
between the things able to be said
that is equivalent to lie
(everything that is possible to be said is a lie)
the rest is silence
only that silence does not exist

no
the words
they do not make love
they make the absence
if I say water: Will I drink?
if I say bread: Will I eat?
in this night, in this world
extraordinary silence the one of tonight
what happens with the soul is that is not seen
what happens with the mind is that is not seen
what happens with the spirit is that is not seen

from where it comes this conspiracy of invisibilities?
no word is visible

Alejandra Pizarnik, "In this night, in this world".

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Sun falling into the sea



I've been working for days in this one, almost obsessed, and yet, it looks childish. After many hours of work, genetic algorithms start to seem the wrong way to use to find the image you look for. I was looking for an image of the sun falling to the sea, or hitting the sea; without knowing clearly why. I've heard from artists I admire that an artist doesn't always have to know why it looks for some symbol or why exactly it takes a particular path... not always. Anyway I don't consider myself an artist yet, but that idea consolate me while I was obsessed looking for a particular image... the thing now looks somehow like I was looking for, better in some way; instead of a sun hitting the sea, the sun almost bends the sea on impact, symbolizing that particular catastrophic effect I was needing to see.
In the symbolic field I'm not quite sure why I was looking for this; just know that the sea, in the more simple simbolization, represents the love as a rule of nature; the sun represents the love as a human feeling; the falling, the decadence. Following this particular way of thinking the sun sinking into the sea might be the love of a person -in heartbreak, without balance with the object of affection (the moon)- going for a sublimation to remain in acts over the rest of its life, but the beloved is not present. Quite enough a personal catastrophe to my taste; like a cosmic giant crash.

The folds of the sea crash like whips on my skin.
And the stars of the sea tear me apart.
The evening of the sea is one of screaming wounds for the lonely,
But lovers find the good death of their day dreams...
Be there soon, you with pain in your eye, the sea hurts.
Be there soon, you who suffer in love, the sea is killing me.
Your hands are cool saints. Cover me with them,
The sea is burning on me.
But why don't you help me! But help!... Cover me. Save me.
Cure me, friend and woman.
[...]

Alfred Lichtenstein, "Song of Kuno Kohn's longing".

Monday, August 20, 2007

Lights over the water

Saturday night some friends took me to ease my mind to a party. The effort didn't worked out, with me longing for someone.
Melancholic night, with people dancing near the river, I walked the shore to see the lights over the surface for a while, with the music coming in echoes from afar.

The beauty of the heart
is the lasting beauty:
its lips give to drink
of the water of life.
Truly it is the water,
that which pours,
and the one who drinks.

All three become one when
your talisman is shattered.
That oneness you can't know
by reasoning.

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, (Mathnawi II, 716-718).

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Á Bao A Qu 3

And this is the final image: as the story tells, the creature alone, rolling down to the first steps, as soon as the sojourner starts to go down the spiral staircase.


Saturday, August 18, 2007

Á Bao A Qu 2




It is good to have something to do all the time, keeps the mind free of running wild with concerns. Because of that, this is the second version of the prior post, where I tried to give the blue-glowing to the strange creature that evolves with every stairstep, and feeds from the pureness of the sojourner, in its way up to the terrace of the Tower of Victory, from where it is visible the "loveliest landscape in the world". As it came to my mind in a comment before, I believe the story is sort of a metaphor for true love, or for the feeling of love as an avatar attached to the soul of the person, in its journey. But I might be wrong.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Á Bao A Qu

I saw an image of a staircase in a post by Tai in Aerophant. At the very moment I saw it, reminded the Á Bao A Qu, which evolves having feedback from the soul of the one who walks up the staircase of the Tower of Victory, to see from the top "the loveliest landscape in the world", which by the way I think is posted here today in Aerophant too. So, strange connections today with that blog and her owner O_o
Worked big part of the day trying to find what I was looking for, and thought I approached that quite enough with this image; quite enough to go to rest now. :-) Then, obviously this is a work from today, and the first time I post an image from the day it was made. Low contrast in this "spiritual" staircase:




If you want to look out over the loveliest landscape in the world, you must climb to the top of the Tower of Victory in Chitor.
There, standing on a circular terrace, one has a sweep of the whole horizon. A winding stairway gives access to this terrace, but only those who do not believe in the legend dare climb up. The tale runs:
On the stairway of the Tower of Victory there has lived since the beginning of time a being sensitive to the many shades of the human soul and known as the A Bao A Qu.
It lies dormant, for the most part on the first step, until at the approach of a person some secret life is touched off in it, and deep within the creature an inner light begins to glow.
At the same time, its body and almost translucent skin begin to stir. But only when someone starts up the spiraling stairs is the A Bao A Qu brought to consciousness, and then it sticks close to the visitor's heels, keeping to the outside of the turning steps, where they are most worn by the generations of pilgrims. At each level the creature's color becomes more intense, its shape approaches perfection, and the bluish light it gives off is more brilliant. But it achieves its ultimate form only at the topmost step, when the climber is a person who has attained Nirvana and whose acts cast no shadows. Otherwise, the A Bao A Qu hangs back before reaching the top, as if paralyzed, its body incomplete, its blue growing paler, and its glow hesitant. The creature suffers when it cannot come to completion, and its moan is a barely audible sound, something like the rustling of silk.
Its span of life is brief, since as soon as the traveler climbs down, the A Bao A Qu wheels and tumbles to the first steps, where, worn out and almost shapeless, it waits for the next visitor. People say that its tentacles are visible only when it reaches the middle of the staircase. It is also said that it can see with its whole body and that to the touch it is like the
skin of a peach.
In the course of centuries, the A Bao A Qu has reached the terrace only once. This legend is recorded by C. C. Iturvuru in an appendix to his now classic treatise On Malay Witchcraft (I937).

Jorge Luis Borges, The book of Imaginary Beings, "Á Bao A Qu".

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Self-portrait Nº3

Mindless. Open to the void...

"Nothing, nothing, nothing. Weakness, self-destruction, tip of a flame of hell piercing the floor."
Franz Kafka, Diaries, entry of July the 23rd, 1913.


Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Spies

Lately I've been talking with my parents a lot; trying to recover the time I've "lost" working during the last years. One story, I always remember, happened during the terror years of the argentinian dictatorship of '76 to '83 (which was forced to an end with the malvinas/falklands war). One day, I was eight; a neighbour lied to the police saying my father was trafficking with stolen engines, when in reality he was just a mechanic. She, that neighbour, lied that to the police to use the system to eliminate (to arrest and kill) my father, only because she didn't wanted trucks parked in the street we lived. During the terror years that was a common practice, the anonymous telephonic delation over a lie to send the machinery of terror to kill a person that the informer didn't like. So the police, very violent military police, broke our door at night and my father was beaten, I cried and ran to my parents room, my mother took me back to mine, she was trying to defend my father, and also our belongings, from being stolen by the M.P. My mother proved her vision and character that day, she kept for decades every single receipt for everything bought, she also fought like a lion trying to defend her husband, but he was severely beaten. During those minutes a policeman entered my room, I was crying because of the noise and screams, he was there, and when I wanted to run again to my parents room, that policeman (I was eight years old) pointed me with his gun... I was a child but understood danger, and the black infinite hole of a gun, so when he saw terror in me:... he smiled.
So the M.P. didn't took any of our possesions, my mother tried to get an answer to where he was taken; finally she left me with another neighbour of her confidence, and she went with him to the police station, she did a lot of psychological work to assure the police will not make my father "disappear", she achieved that, but my father passed several months in jail, without a trial, obviously. I remember every detail of the jailhouse, I can do a map right now. It was the fourth police station (comisaría cuarta) of my town, Paraná, Argentina; many people had months in detention there, until, apparently forgotten or not visited by their families, they were suddenly "missing", one more of the thirty thousand we had in Argentina. My mother took me with her every single day to the police station during four months, we expended every minute, and more, of the visiting hours, each day. I saw many tough men in there, crying after they saw me, by remembering their sons or daughters, and telling my father he was a lucky man, because his family visited every day, and delayed the visiting hours until a policeman took us, my mother and I, out of his arms.
The system, the machinery of terror was like that, it liked the spies and liars to maintain the fear, to keep population under control. Everyone treated at its neighbours, and even friends, with caution, trying to not release information, or trying to be cool with everyone, because of fear of letting go their true self. Aquaintances sometimes were better than friends, people slightly knew by you suddenly offered you a home to live, while, let's say, your family didn't wanted to have you near. Even the priests violated the secret of confession many times. The human nature tested to the extreme. Self-censorship, and absence of criticism, due to forced distrustfulness and inhibition, only to have you under control, work for peanuts, and make rich a few. The scars are still in the society, and in myself. Only the born after the dictatorship are more free in spirit, but less committed to society values. I recently started to truly open myself to strangers, since about the end of 2006; and I am nothing less than thirty four now. I might be the last one in the country in achieving that; I feel like :-)

This evolutionary art image is "Spies", like the eyes of the woman behind the curtain, across the street (I will never forget her name) who sent the state terrorism and human abjectness to enter my home.





I awake to find no peace of mind
I said how do you live
As a fugitive?
Down here, where I cannot see so clear
I said what do I know?
Show me the right way to go

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so bad 'cos you know
And the spies hide out in every corner
But you can't touch them no
'Cos they're all spies

They're all spies

I awake to see that no one is free
We're all fugitives - look at the way we live
Down here, I cannot sleep from fear, no
I said which way do I turn?
Oh I forget everything I learn

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so bad 'cos you know
And the spies hide out in every corner
But you can't touch them no
'Cos they're all spies

They're all spies

And if we don't hide here
They're gonna find us
And if we don't hide now
They're gonna catch us when we sleep
And if we don't hide here
They're gonna find us

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so good 'cos you know
That though spies hide out in every corner
they can't touch you, no
'Cos they're just spies

They're just spies
They're just spies
They're just spies
They're just spies

Coldplay, "Spies".

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Confutatis maledictis



I've been in doubt for long about calling this image Abstract Nº10 or Confutatis maledictis.
Those poor souls asking from the unbearable emptiness... I'll be self-indulgent once more with the name, although it is hardly represented by those stains on the screen I made. :-)

Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis:
Voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
Cor contritum quasi cinis:
Gere curam mei finis.

Wolfgang A. Mozart, Requiem in D minor K. 626 (III. Sequenz - Confutatis maledictis.)

Monday, August 13, 2007

Abstract Nº9

When I don't know what to post, I prefer posting nothing, like everyone. But when I want to post but I don't know what, or don't have the time to elaborate the post, or don't know how to say what I want to say, I post an abstract. Well, this is Nº 9. That made me remember Revolution 9 by The Beatles; of course this image will never be revolutionary, but at least is as bad to the eye as that particular Beatles song is to the human ear :-P Not really a song, well. This is an image just out of Interactive Genetic Algorithms. If you are enough permissive with the concept, (and no-one of us is) every new image out of IGA's is revolutionary. :-) hihi.

I hope this week improves the last one. Have a good week everyone. Meaning everyone. :-)


Sunday, August 12, 2007

Heptaflower



I keep working over this kind of pseudotextures with genetic algorithms.

Many significations are attached to heptagrams, seven pointed stars, or any forms of seven evenly distributed points. My two favourites are the Babalon star, and the heptagon as a symbol of perfection in christianity. You have more in alchemy, kabbalah, natives of north-america, wicca, the commonwealth star, and possibly the list go on.

"Now thou shalt flame the third, chanting the invocation. She is born in the third flame."

"In verse seven verses of seven lines, seven magick words. Stand and chant seven times. Envision thyself as a cloaked radiance desirable to the Goddess, beloved. Envision Her approaching thee. Embrace Her, cover Her with kisses. Think upon the lewd lascivious things thou couldst do. All is good to Babalon. All."

Jack Parsons, The Book of Babalon; (The Third Ritual).

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Abstract Nº 8



I find myself busy to work on images, or post something better than this.
One time, this one caused me the effect of a nervous/bloody image. It remained as one more abstract.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Constant dawn

A supposed impossible image of a constant dawn: sun, sky, clouds, green, ocean, earth curvature, all in one impossible space, all to represent...:

How constant is hope, how faithful her trend!
Ceaselessly doth she walk beside me,
With her gaudy touch tipping
Each dull task with a scarlet light;
Making each trend of the path beckon with color.
Filling my cup even as the wine I drink,
Becoming the pith of the dream,
Which lies as a pillow beneath each sup—
The urge upon my hand—
The mother, verily!—of each hour;
For tomorrow may not be born—
Save that hope beget her.

Patience Worth, "Hope, The Constant".


Saturday, August 04, 2007

Pulpa de mandarina




Extraña imagen para haber sido creada con AGI's (IGA).

Desde mi niñez he estado apegado a las mandarinas. Los chicos del barrio las robábamos de los árboles de las señoras que tenían árboles y no las comían. A nosotros nos gustaban, entonces usábamos un palo, una lata y un alambre para cortarlas de los árboles para no entrar sin permiso a las casas vigiladas por perros; las mandarinas entraban en la lata al cortarlas con el alambre. Lindos tiempos. Me gusta comerlas en el parque, especialmente los días soleados de otoño en el hemisferio sur.

Un gusto de la niñez, una banda de rock de la adolescencia, y un sueño de amor de la adultez:

Measuring a summers day,
I only finds it slips away to grey,
The hours, they bring me pain.

Tangerine, tangerine,
Living reflection from a dream;
I was her love, she was my queen,
And now a thousand years between.

Thinking how it used to be,
Does she still remember times like these?
To think of us again?
And I do.

Jimmy Page, "Tangerine"; (Led Zeppelin).

Friday, August 03, 2007

Fearful look



This is a year old image. Never posted it because never liked much; same as this particular poem. Now I'm posting this one because I'm working less, and have less images. I feel a little disheartened about not being able of managing the right evolution I want to have with the images, but also I'm feeling more close to my family these days and find myself with less interest any kind of art appreciation (art belongs to other people), or in my own work with this images. My interest will be back, I presume. Don't know why I tell this.

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
Yet I go singing through that land oppressed
As one that singeth through the flowers of June.

No more, with forest-fingers crawling free
O'er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,
Shall evil break my soul with mysteries
Of some world-poison maddening bush and tree.

No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and king
With bloody secrets veiled before me stand.
Last night I held all evil in my hand
Closed: and behold it was a little thing.

I broke the infernal gates and looked on him
Who fronts the strong creation with a curse;
Even the god of a lost universe,
Smiling above his hideous cherubim.

And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unriven
The last black crooked sympathy and shame,
And hailed him with that ringing rainbow name
Erased upon the oldest book in heaven.

Like emptied idiot masks, sin's loves and wars
Stare at me now: for in the night I broke
The bubble of a great world's jest, and woke
Laughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.

G. K. Chesterton, "The End Of Fear".

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