Thumbprintiness
hello,
September. Autumn. Back to school. It really ought to be the beginning of Q4 but it isn’t.
As we see more and more AI we are realising how good our intuition is. Film/TV/Production people have always understood this. They know that we, the audience, can sense ‘quality’ (of some sort) in film. We can’t describe it, we can’t point it out, but we sense it’s there. Nick Park of Aardman has a word for it (from an interview in The Observer):
“When the company joined forces with DreamWorks in 1997 to make Chicken Run, Park remembers the animators' concern about fingerprints showing up once the clay models were enlarged on screen. So faces were cleaned up and oversmoothed.
"Then they realised that, no, the 'thumbprintiness' of it is what the audience relates to, though they may not consciously register it."First brain: the smell of rain
Second brain: petrichor
Galaxy brain: geosmin
I mentioned last month how much I love modern boogie yus, so this month I streamed a little selection.
I’ve been working on a presentation version of Do Interesting and I went back to some of the material I couldn’t squeeze in. These bits from Alexandra Horowitz’s On Looking are fantastic:
“The sclera of our eyes lost its dark coloration somewhere on the route between chimpanzee and human. With the whites of my eyes as backdrop to my bright blue irises, the direction of my gaze suddenly becomes plainly distinct. I cannot avoid being spotted looking at you by turning to the side and sneaking a peek out of the corners of my eyes.”
“The architecture of the human face is centered on the eyes, not the mouth or nose. Our cheekbones are conspicuously high—right below the eyes. The forehead and eyebrows complete the framing on the other side. Even the nose gets in the action, serving as an indicator of where our faces are pointing. Unlike most mammals, we have highly developed facial musculature, including around the eyes and even in the eye itself. What we lost in expressive potential when we lost tails is made up for by our ability to squint an ironic half smile—distinct from a full-bore joyous grin or a grimace. Along the way, too, the shape of our eye opening got squashed, revealing more of the whites.”
And this from Kip Omolade...
“The weirdest thing I do before going to bed involves the power of smell.
Usually when something special happens, like completing a painting, I spray my favorite cologne in the air. Before I go to sleep, I spray that same cologne on my bed. It's my way of connecting bliss with a scent.
While I'm sleeping, it allows my brain to subconsciously work on something creative. Often, I wake up with up feeling good with ideas on how to complete the next painting.”
MATTERS AND THINGS
The first Interesting Assemble is going to happen on an internet screen on September 30th. Our special guest is Dr Helen Castor who talked at Interesting 2016 about Digging Up Kings. It’s free, but you have to get a ticket.
I interviewed the legend that is Matt Jukes about Openness. Like and subscribe! More interviews coming soon.
I’ll give you back your day.
russell
(There are 1012 of you - I removed a bunch of ‘undeliverables’ - 1012 people have competed in at least 5 olympic games.)