Monday 10 March 2008

Why?

What's a penguin with too much time on his flippers to do? Exactly what everyone else does, start a blog! I'm not sure how regular this will be. Can I generate one idea a day? Can I generate one idea a month? When will I get time to fish? We'll see................

Interesting little film,Kiwi. What seems strange is how it seems to be an animation version of a Necker cube. There are seemingly two separate interpretations which are essentially at 180 degrees to each other and you can't hold both in your head at the same time.

On the one hand we have a pathetic little obsessive/compulsive bird who spends its life creating the illusion, note it's only an illusion, that just once it will fly....and it kills it. Why didn't it just get a life?

On the other hand, we have a single minded little bird who simply won't let its dream of flying die, however impossible it seems and it (almost) succeeds. Is that inspirational? A lot of people seem to think so. And after all, we don't actually SEE him hit the ground.

Does the bird cry in sadness half way down because it sees its own death or in joy because it's realised its dream and so, what harm in death? Don't you just love it when we get all serious like this. IT'S ONLY A CARTOON, for Pete's sake!

From what I can glean Permedi the animator seems to have used the first premise as the basis of the 'story'. He seems attracted to the psychologically challenged. His first animation, 'Pony' was about a seriously disturbed little girl........

So where does the second interpretation come from? Did Permedi put it in, consciously or unconsciously and if the latter, well done! It's always good to produce something that you never intended, thatta way lies Art!

And if not?

Perhaps, we just don't like to think that interpretation one could apply to anyone or the kiwi, though it does often, so we just invent something suitably uplifting to make US feel better and ignore the very real problem of mental health? Dunno. Probably reading far too much into this but, as Borges pointed out, art lies not in the object but in the interaction between the object and the spectator (citation needed)

The nice thing about being a penguin is that I don't have to go through all that rigmarole of nailing trees to the side of the cliff. Down here, there's just ice and ice and ice and...........makes it all a lot easier!

7 comments:

  1. I think, after reading you for a few months I actually get this post.

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  2. Just so long as there's no jumping to conclusions here :) The piece was a result of reading some of the posts on YouTube and me wanting to say more on why people were reacting the way they were. I no doubt would have found something else to kick the blog off but the necker cube analogy seemed to be something everyone else had missed so......

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  3. Actually, you can hold opposing ideas in your head at the same time. The reason it is difficult for some of us is that Westerners are linear thinkers. In the East, contradictory ideas do not exclude each other.

    My daughter reminded me of this the other night when she called from her Speaking Conference to update me on her status.

    I reminded her that I've been trying to explain the idea to my children (and husband) for years, to no avail, because Americans do not "get it."

    Imagine the wheels of a bicycle (that is how it was explained to me) and you will see how two separate ideas work to make a life go. If you spin the wheels in opposite directions, you will go nowhere (rarely, but sometimes beneficial.) If you were unable to back up, that would be detrimental. So the wheels go forward most of the time, but they also go back as needed. That is important. And for most of us, having two wheels helps us balance more easily.

    In case you have not noticed, I am an example of a walking, living contradiction. Until recently, my incongruity was a handicap. Over the past couple of years, I've decided that it is a boon. The blazing contradictions that tradmark my life have lent a depth to it that is often unmatched.

    That said, you are correct.
    Kiwi is just a cartoon.

    That is all.

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  4. It is as you say a cultural inheritance largely from the ancient Greeks.

    Subconsciously, we must hold the two versions of the Necker cube simultaneously otherwise it would wouldn't 'flip' the way it does, ie without warning. Just we shoehorn that 'superposition of states' into a single eigen state when we bring it to consciousness. QED!

    If you work out the time difference, you'll see this is being written mid afternoon. No work? No, I've just written 550 lines of code and my brain hurts!

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  5. SO that is why, even though you are an experienced coder, this blog looks the way it does! :)

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  6. Wait! I thought QED was only for physical states- not mental. I'm 'diffused' (a term that my oldest coined when she was four years old.)

    She also used to debate with my then four year old brother on the theology of eternal security and predestination. What a child!

    No wonder she is more successful at French than I am.

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  7. Since my physical state exactly mirrors my mental state, wrecked, I think the analogy's a good one :)

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