Medium v. Message

As a visual artist, I care a lot about geeky things like resolution, color, lighting. I was one of the first people in my circles to embrace things like HDTV and blu-ray, and I look forward to the next generations as well. I think I was the first person among my peers to make a point of shooting and editing in HD as well. I’m not trying to brag about being “first,” just making a point that it was and is important to me. The way you experience a piece of artwork is almost as important as the actual quality of the piece, in that it will determine your overall impression. To wit, try watching a second generation VHS of Kubrick’s 2001, then compare it to the current blu-ray edition… it’s a completely different movie.

As such, I have started making some strides towards becoming what is known as an “audiophile,” aka a music nerd. I’m not a musician, as much as I’d like to be, but I have a lot of CDs and can appreciate a guitar riff as much as the next guy. So I started wondering if it would be worth having lossless (CD quality) copies of my collection, compared to the current (good quality) MP3s, and decided that yes, I would rather listen to the best version of a song, even if it takes up a whole lot more storage space. I have begun ripping my collection to ALAC (which is FLAC for iPods) and have so far been pleased with the results. I also received a great birthday gift from my parents, which is an Oppo DVD player that supports SACD, HDCD, Audio DVDs, and 7.1 surround over HDMI. Listening to a classic yesterday, The Downward Spiral, in 5.1 was, again, a completely different experience than it had been in mp3, or even in standard CD format. Eye-opening for fans of that disc, I would say. Or ear-opening is maybe more fitting a turn of phrase.

Anyways, I don’t advocate wasting money on things you don’t need, and my setup is certainly not the latest and greatest in technical terms, but if you appreciate art you should try to do what you can to experience it in the purest and most distraction-free setting available. Don’t settle for internet jpgs, compressed music and 480 res video… try to make the digital experience as close as possible to that of real life.

Failed

Thoughts fired from a cannon

I am now in what seems to be the early stages of my annual cold, something I have been getting pretty much every year for a while now, which always occurs when the temperature changes from coat weather to t-shirt weather. I’m pretty sure it’s not allergies. If anybody knows a solution, hit me up. I don’t know what this is all about.

Nor do I really understand why I bring that point up in the context of this post, a post in which I intend to talk about my plans for the summer and fall. But before I get to those plans, let me digress again!

I took a fairly awful vacation a couple weeks ago, from which I am still also recovering. I figure I was in my car about 60+ hours that week. I don’t want to talk about it, suffice to say it started fine but for all intents and purposes I did not reach my destination, and it quickly became the most stressful vacation I have ever been on, leaving me more stressed when I got back than when I departed.

Yesterday I made a bit of progress on my project backlog, finishing some photo editing. I have a few more things on my plate but I am trying to step way back from obliging my time to other people. This is not meant as a criticism of my collaborators, but I am just not in the same place I used to be, where I could take on all kinds of projects for free, leaving me in a constant state of art/work when I got home from my day job. That is not me right now. I wish it was.

What I have planned for the future is more insular. I will be writing some movie reviews on a separate (but linked) blog. I intend also to get into video game design somehow. I think it will start in a very, very simplistic manner- a sort of narrative text game, like what I grew up on in the bbs modem gaming days of yore. A digital choose your own adventure. I would like to collaborate on this, but the beauty is that I can do it from my office at home. I might also do more photos (possibly even as a part of this game) but they will be at my own whim and pace.

I’ve been pretty stressed lately. I need to do some things for me for a while. I need to stretch my writing muscles again as well. I need to ride my bike and watch netflix with my cat. I might need to sketch a portrait… hmmmmm…

Thanks for indulging me, internets. You’re the best.

Gwen Hart vs The Invincible Rainbow