TRISTAN TZARA “Dada Manifesto 1918”

"A work of art should not be beauty in itself, for beauty is dead; it should be neither gay nor sad, neither light nor dark to rejoice or torture" - Tristan Tzara

That quote out of the whole paper stood out to me. I do not know why but I feel that one quote is the backbone to Dada art. My interpretation of the Dada era is that they wanted to break all boundaries of art. No more cliche ascetic pieces, no more "natural" paintings. I think they wanted to prove that everything in the world is art. It just takes a special gift to see it. I really like how the paper broke down the meanings of Cubism and Dada. I feel that this whole paper is almost a declaration of independence form common art and they are breaking free into the world they want to perceive. I also really like how Dada art is here to break logic. It is being created to make our brains rethink the way we see daily objects. It is to confuse the stupid and enlighten the creatives. Although I did not understand a lot of the metaphors and crazy analogies I feel as if I have a better sense for what these artists were trying to say and convoy in there art.

Video Game Revolution

From pong in a bar to mobile gaming on our cell phones, video games have come a long way. Video games create a completely immersive environment for us to escape to.  Video games have come a long way just like computers have. It all started out with people who wanted to impress others and invent really cool things. Pong is a great example of that. From creating a game that need a full standing device to condensing that to a console that could plug into a tv, video games have yet to stop evolving. As the 1980's came to an end companies like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft began releasing consoles and games into the market. They started to battle it out and fight to be the best. Along with these consoles came a revolution of addiction and learning. Kids became addicted to these false realities they were playing in and among these realities the creaters could hide hidden messages for kids to learn or see. This created an uproar in the video game world. Although that did not stop these companies from making these games, they are making great headway into the future. Pretty soon we should expect to see games that fully immerse the player in a full room that turns our reality into a game.

Nerds shall rule the world!

Triumph of the nerds

Part 1
From the drive to learn more to the need to explore. It is crazy to see that the beginning fuel for the computer industry was just to impress friends or impress themselves. From all the famous names such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and many more, the personal computer started out to them as a fascination. All of these guys had a craving for electronics and the want to keep doing more. They became the driving force behind the worlds biggest revolution. Up until resistors came around computes we almost impossible to be around, but with Intel's micro chips and tiny resistors the game was changed. Micro chips and micro resistors paved the way for all current technology and gave all of these guys the correct tools to continue to push forward in the power house need to build the ultimate "PC". The Altair 8800 was the first personal computer released to the public for anyone to purchase. Most of the people interested in buying this computer were just hobbiest and people looking to tinker with the toys. It didn't even do that much, but people loved it. Next came the Apple 1 but that was a complete failure. Jobs needed to create an all in one computer that not only something a hardware person could use but a software person would love. They then release the Apple 2 and it took off and personal computers where beginning to be the wave of the future.

Part 2
As IBM, Microsoft and Intel leaned real quick, the personal computer was an industry only made for the strong. IBM was struggling in the development of the computer until one day they decided to build a computer in less than a year. They could no longer build the parts they had to buy and assemble them. Once IBM had this down they looked to Bill Gates to build an OS for it and create a more user friendly device. Although IBM had a great idea it did not take long for hackers and tinkerers to take the computers apart and replace and trade parts. IBM started to loose the market for computers. Bill Gates OS Began to take off since it was not directly linked to IBM it was its own company. Over night Bill Gates became a millionaire. As Intel, IBM, and Bill Gates had to separate, Steve Jobs release the Macintosh 1.

Part 3
Bill Gates - Master of the GUI world. As the two companies battle it out to become the best computer company around. Both Jobs and Gates can be seen taking others ideas and integrating them into there own work but does that make them thief's?  If it was not for people opening up computers stealing each others codes and fixing/adding to them we would have the computers we have today. As Windows released Windows 95 it dominated the market and almost killed the Macintosh market. The two have battled out the computer industry and have until now Apple is slowly making a come back.

Douglas Engelbart - The Mother Of All Demos

To be called the Mother Of All Demos you must have had an extremely good demo.... Well besides the obvious in that statement Douglas Engelbart earned the credit to have that next to his name. In 1968 he held a conference with about 1000 other computer people to release his new interface software.  He created software for the "Personal Computer". It was software that didn't rely on lines of code but instead relied on graphical interface. One segment of his demonstration he is showing how simple clicking and key words can search a user created database. He was using "open house" as the title and under each day of the week was a different group of names. As he went through the steps of the program it was displaying just the names and the titles. He was doing this without lines of code. It was the first word processing software that almost anyone with no computer experience could use. Douglas Engelbart had changed the way people were starting to look at computers. He gave them insight into the power of processing and began to show the world that anything was possible. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-mother-of-all-demos-is-45-years-old-doesnt-look-a-day-over-25/282152/

Alan Turing - Pardoned

A man of wisdom, genius, numbers. To see how he was treated when he saved the country from starvation. It is sad to read about history like this, to see a man such as Alan Turning be killed, for being gay, even after he single handedly saved his country. Turning was a code breaker in WWII and is credited with saving his country from starvation and possible annihilation. He was one of the many genius code breakers during the war. He was able to break the mind crunching german Nazi Enigma code. The Enigma machine was incredibly complex. If the sender and receiver did not have the same settings it was impossible for the code to be decrypted. The germans were ten steps ahead of everyone else when it came to sending code. Each one of their units had a different way to set the machines so the message could come through and each time they sent a message the machine had to change settings. The code was mathematically a huge mess. Turning, however was able to crack this code and convert the messages so that they could understand what the germans were sending back and fourth. After Turning was crowned a hero for cracking the code, the government found out he was gay. Even though he was the hero they sentenced him to chemical castration. He was forced to die. It is sad that a man who saved so many was forced to die because he was a different. Now many years later they have pardoned his death and admitted that is was the wrong thing to do. Honestly to me that doesn't matter now. They took a mans life that saved millions. He did nothing wrong and didn't hurt anyone. Waiting many years to finally admit that you were wrong about killing someone still makes you a murder, it doesn't change the fact that the government still killed someone. Alan Turning was a man of bravery and courage. He fought till the very end with the best interest for his country but only to be let down by stupidity.

Source

Mark Snyder - Electronic Music and Images

I had no idea what to expect when I went to see Mark Snyder perform live. I was thinking maybe we would see someone create some electronic techno music or dj something. I did not expect at all what I saw. As he started his first song, with no introduction, I was really confused. It wasn't making sense to me. He used a mix of pre-recorded noises and images along with one live instrument to create a wonderful mix of senses. It was a sensory overload between the images and music. As the colors came to life on screen his music transported me to another world. I was starting to see stories unfold before me  but in the most indirect manor.

My favorite part of his show was when they started the duo. I loved the girl who was playing the harp. When the two began to mix and the music picked up it was outstanding. I have never heard a harp in person before but it was absolutely beautiful.

Flip Book Reviews

Gina - I like how well it flowed and transformed the sections of stories together. The colors and images all came together in one vibrant incredible imagery of a flip book. 

Andrea - The STORY!!!! It was amazing! I love how you brought your life to life in the flip book and used so much color. I really like how you put all your effort into it and did not lack in any aspect. 

Bryan - I loved the story and the concept behind the flip book!!! Going through what we have learned in class was incredible. I wish that more effort was put into the coloring and the drawings. The book seemed it could of used more time spent on it. 

Kirby - The ocean! It stood out so much! I don't know why but it stood out so much for me. 

Holly - The dragon. It was amazing! I wish you put that much effort into the whole book and created something outstanding. 

Katelyn - I really loved how you introduced a character into the story but I wish you continued that throughout the rest of the book. 

Leah - I loved the story of the caterpillar and how they talked in the story. I wish that you used more of the page and maybe expanded on the story. 

Ralph - The ballon and elephant where extremely well drawn out and colored beautifully. I wish it had an overlaying story that could bring the whole book together.  

Kyle - I really like how you told a story about Boston history. It was really unique to do that but it worked really well. I wish that there was more to the story than such a short history about Boston.

Persuasive Games

As I was browsing the website I found a couple games that I really liked and played them several times. The first game I played was Windfall. It was a simple game about wind energy and how to make people happy. In the game you are given money and have to build windmills to power the city. Although you can do what ever you want the catch is you have to make the people happy. So it takes a lot of thought into where you are going to be putting the windmills. I really liked this game and thought it was really cool and an extremely unique idea for a game. The next game I played was Presidential Pong. This game was kind of bland but unique in its own way. In this game you play as two presidential candidates and hit a ball back and fourth. I see this game as being a metaphor that mocks how a real election is run. All the people do is hit a ball back and forth and run side to side. Behind all the back end political aspects of president this is what it seems like when they are running. I really think the game could be improved in many different ways. I wanted to play a 3rd game but every other one would not let me play it or "it doesn't support power pc"anymore error came up. I wish these games would go cross platform much easier.

Steve Jobs Stanford Address

Steve Jobs - an icon for the world to always look up to. He was a man way beyond his time and always pushed the limit. When Jobs gave his speech me made a comment "This is the closest I have ever been to a college graduation ceremony."  For me this quote means a lot. I am in the same position of wanting to drop out of college and just sit in on the classes I want to be in. He did the same and now he is one of the worlds leading computer engineers that has gone down in history and will always be remembered. He created a legacy that has changed the world for the better and he will never be thanked enough. In his speech he talks about how his parents put him up for adaption but at the promise he will get a college education. I think that was a huge decision for them to make. Although he did not finish college his new parents could not look down upon him because he was chasing his dreams. His dreams maybe a little crazy at the time but every one is a little crazy but that makes the world go round.

Coding = Art

Now that title does not make sense standing alone but Mark J. Stock has taking the two and created some outstanding art. He takes millions of lines of code and turns them into beautiful pieces of art. Now this art does not consist of code on a page. The code turns into colors, shapes, spirals, squares, basically anything your mind could think of. I picked this piece to wright about. I really like this piece. I zoomed in to try and see what the piece was composed of. It is composed of millions of little squares and boxes and rectangles. All of them appear to be different shades of grey, black and silver. I also really like how the depth is created with the blurring of the different layers. It makes it appear as if it is popping off the page and adds a whole new perspective to the piece. 

I enjoyed looking at all of his pieces and one day if I can I would love to buy a piece for my house. I really did enjoy researching Mark J. Stock and his works.

Raymond Kurzweil - A genius of man kind

Raymond Kurzweil is truly inspiring for me to research. I wish I could sit down and pick his mind and tear all his thoughts and ideas out and pour them onto paper. I love watching videos on him and seeing what his predictions will be for the future but not the far far away future a future that is in the next couple years.

After watching a handful of videos I chose to write about "Your robot assistant of the future." This video was all about how our computers and internet searching will soon become our personal assistant. Towards the end of the video I was thrown off pretty far. I was thinking that this will happen eventually but he predicts that in 2029 it will become reality. This prediction include that search engines will out perform humans, they will answer questions before we even ask them, they will be able to read and scan 200 million pages before a human could finish one and that they will be able to filter the internet so precisely for one person no one in the world will have the 2 same results. I cant even wrap my mind around that. He thinks computers will start to learn our personalities better than we can learn ourselves. That is crazy!!!! Maybe one day the internet will take over, and the sad part is I might be alive to see it.