Jason Silva freestyling. If you like this check out the previous post on Silva’s current project “Turning Into Gods” and his previous film “The Immortalists”.
Some thoughts on Art + Inspiration, Love, Apotheosis and Engineering Divinity from jason silva on Vimeo.
In this unmissable look at the magic of comics, Scott McCloud bends the presentation format into a cartoon-like experience, where colorful diversions whiz through childhood fascinations and imagined futures that our eyes can hear and touch.
“2012: Time for Change” presents an optimistic alternative to apocalyptic doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee João Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method. As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 heralds the birth of a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.
The trailer is brief, but the full film is galvanizing. Laced with great animation, it presents a view of the social phenomena that is 2012, highlighting the world’s current and impending traumas, and innovators who exemplify the means of transmuting global emergency into a terrific leap of (r)evolution.
The 2012: Time For Change site has lots of links, clips, galleries and even story boards. Check the ‘About’ section for an index of inspirational innovators and their contributions to society.
As the exponential curve of Moore’s law ascends, so too do our avenues of expression. In this TED video, artist Natasha Tsakos fuses live performance with projected backgrounds and digital animation for an inspiring vision of the future present.
As digital art programs become more intuitive, user-friendly and portable, whole new modes of fully-immersive communication and performance will allow people to manifest and share their wildest flights of imagination. The legos, dolls and action figures of this era’s children will increasingly occur on the planes of virtual reality, to be exchanged and remixed among friends, giving rise to waves of cultural novelty the likes of which the modern world has never seen.
‘The main components of the Leonar3Do interactive desktop VR (virtual reality) hardware are: a spatial input device (the ‘bird’) with six degrees of freedom, 3D glasses and monitor-mounted sensors. The bird operates in six degrees of freedom, which means that you can not only move the individual objects or the whole space, but also rotate them. The 3D glasses allow users to perceive a stereoscopic image displayed before the monitor area as three-dimensional object. The sensors continuously track the position of both the bird and the glasses, and send information through the central unit to the Leonar3Do system software.’
Re-envision the image of the One-Man-Band for the present day’s technology, a single person radiating mesmerizing fields of symphonic sound, light and form. Imagine whole classrooms, neighborhoods and protest rallies joining forces to project holographic visualizations in full view of the public and media coverage. How might these newfound means of being seen and heard catalyze a Revolutionary Renaissance?
When it rains, it pours. And right now it’s pouring Singularity like sweet, hot maple syrup all over the fluffy stack of flapjacks that is humanity.
An editor from the transhumanist magazine H+ sums it all up very nicely with a compilation of recent developments on everything from nanofactories to 3D human tissue printers to plasma fusion. The asymptote is in view.
Meanwhile, American researchers have successful produced an amazing breakthrough in the creation of artificial life. Pre-programmed DNA “software” implanted in a surrogate cell. The cell then reads the new, synthetic DNA, produces the proteins encoded therein and converts the surrogate into the cell species specified by the genetic code. The newly minted cell species then copies itself billions of times – all containing the same synthetically programmed DNA. New life.
“I think they’re going to potentially create a new industrial revolution,” Dr Venter said.
“If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide.”
Simultaneously, we don’t know the risks of launching vast synthetic organisms into the wild. It’s kind of an organic grey goo quandry.
However, we will have the machines on our side! Newly developed transistors allow biological proteins to communicate with to nano-electronic circuits.
First, researchers built the backbone of the transistor out of a carbon nanotube between two electrodes. Next, they insulated the electrodes and covered the nanotube with a mixture of fatty molecules called lipids and proteins. The covering formed a lipid “bilayer” — a double lipid membrane — much like those that make up the outer membranes of biological cells.
The researchers then poured a solution of sodium ions, potassium ions and adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, over the transistor while running a voltage through it. In cells, ATP is the primary source of energy. It fulfilled the same role in the transistor, powering the proteins embedded in the lipid bilayer.
These proteins began working, transferring sodium and potassium ions across the bilayer. The charges from the ions created an electrical field around the transistor, which then changed the ability of the transistor to conduct electricity by as much as 35 percent. The higher the concentration of ATP, the more the conductivity changed.
Getting a biological molecule to control the electric current in a transistor is a first step toward computers that would interface directly with the brain.
“We are about to break the surly bonds of [reality] and punch the face of God!” – H. Simpson
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Bucky Fuller
Last year’s exhibit Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe is an amazing collection of designs, visionary guidelines, concepts and wisdom-nuggets.
“Real wealth is ideas plus energy.”
So let’s get rich!
Things aren’t always as they seem. Maybe we all have a little more in common than we thought.
Suspended animation is widely used in science fiction for the purposes of time travel into the future, long distance space voyages, and as a bizarre form of penal incarceration.
Real world applications of suspended animation are much more useful and now we may be on the brink of applying suspended animation techniques to trauma victims to improve chances of survival. Mark Roth discusses his method of inducing suspended animation with hydrogen sulfide with amazing results.
Meanwhile, because of high unemployment rates, fresh college graduates are being offered the opportunity to enter suspended animation until there are job openings or the distant future has a need for philosophy degrees.
Artists (27)
Audio (5)
Places (5)
Sites (32)
Speakers (9)
