The Origin of Knowledge

(having great confusion after--these four months spent on--reading Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind, Robert Nozick's Nature of Rationality, Steven Pinker's Instinct Language and John Seely Brown's Social Life of Information)

“Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.” 

– William James

‘The Canvas of Imaginations’ by Gilang Danu

 

Some life questions: Who has the authority to create knowledge? Nature or society? Are truths simply wait to be discovered naturally or are truths should perceived as socially constructed?

I gave you two--abstract--analogies about how nature and our social life can create knowledge.

NATURAL KNOWLEDGE
Let's imagine we're all isolated fishes. Swimming forever in the darkest bottom of ocean water. Pretty much nothing else in our natural surroundings, no coral reef, no seaweed, nor another sea creatures. This fish--all it would feel would be the pressure of the water, the temperature of the water, the motion of the water. Would this fish have invented the natural numbers--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on? I think probably not, because there's nothing to count there – everything this creature would have felt would have been continuous rather than discrete, so this creature might have invented a completely different type of mathematics. A different way of seeing things. For they lived among continuous set of things that was hard to distinguish one from another.

 

SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE
Now imagine we're living in a totalitarian nation, which is ruled by a iron-handed ruler. The ruler didn't allow any of his citizen to receive any information at all. Everyday is work day for the citizen. No free-time, no free-speech, pretty much like a robotic life. We're all totally isolated within our home boundaries, not even talk to our neighbors. We're all just prisoners, silenced and forced to obey every command the ruler gave us. The only thing we can learn was primitive language to received order from the government. One day, a peasant managed to escape the national border and made it to the other country. He sees many things he never saw before, he learn many things from this new country. The government of the new country even put him to university and taught him many lessons. As without any teachings, the peasant couldn't know anything except his native language of his former nation.

 

Those analogies may not perfectly captured the essence of how knowledge can be constructed (as always, I talked in abstracts, not concrete) but...you got the idea, right? Now, back to the main questions:

How is knowledge created and who has the authority to speak?

What are the limitations of creating new knowledge and what can empower us?

The nature or the people?

Facts alone or consensus? 

Or is it both?

The Rules on Simplifications

Meaning-making. The main purpose of our language is to trigger some kind of meaning to the perceiver. So does drawings as a language symbol, the illustrator must made their drawings had this kind of meaning to—at least himself—the audiences.

The greatest roadblock for many painters/ designer/ illustrators mainly didn’t come from the skill areas. Sometimes, one thing that hit us the most was how to put such intangible and unspeakable ideas into the concrete projection of drawings. That is—to say—to put a very subjective matter into objective understanding. To simplify the ideas (that mainly didn’t come in linguistic form) and making it meaningful. And hell, we had to through this kind of problem in daily basis.

Simplifications of idea in the visual media required a careful approach, you may not cut your idea down randomly—for it’ll cut the whole meaning as well.  One philosophical ideas that I kept my whole life was Occam’s Razor. This the tool which I used to 'cut' everything to their simplest core, without cutting any original meanings or ideas.

The term coined by 14th-century English thinker, William of Ockham (though it was Bertrand Russell whose introduced me to it). The main idea of Occam's Razor is:

'Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem'

or

'Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.'

Many more thinkers and great figures re-shaped this statement over time. Leonardo Da Vinci had his own quote,

'Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.'

Isaac Newton got his own cool version,

'We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.'

And Einstein stated in the same fashion,

'Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.'

Thanks to the bias and misquotes, for today the Occam's Razor known best for

'The simplest explanation that covers all the facts is usually the best.'

At first there are no strict explanations how to apply this Razor in daily life (let alone the visual media), but Ludwig Wittgenstein (the disciples and partner-in-crime of Bertrand Russell, and also my favorite philosopher) set the applicable method so that the Razor could be installed in daily problem. Luki (my dearly nickname for Ludwig Wittgenstein….hahaha) explained that the true nature of this Razor is the eradication of error through the clarification of language. A principle he called himself logical atomism. A logically perfect language according to him would remove all ambiguity by reducing facts to their simplest components. Here goes the example:

Gilang Danu is cool.

(a simple statement, huh, take a look at here as I'm trying to break it down by its 'atomic facts')

1. There is a Gilang Danu

2. There is only one Gilang Danu

3. Whatever is Gilang Danu is cool.

See, just follow those atomic facts closely, and the first statement would all gone clear. This is the most efficient simplification according to Luki.

Now, how could this intangible philosophical ideas could be applied to visual media, like drawings? I must stated, in the terms of drawings I created a separation between two main ‘islands’, based on the subject: abstract and concrete. We have more freedom to construct and imply our meanings the more abstract the subject is. If a subject is more explicit, less is required of the audience to construct its own meaning because it is designed more concretely. When we abstract an image… we are not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details.

By stripping down an image to its essential meaning, an artist can amplify that meaning. Look at my example down below.

1. There’s a real photograph of me smiling, let’s simplify it.

2. Now, we got a comical-realistic drawing, with shadow and all. A simplification from the photo version.

3. Now, we strip down the shadow and the complexity, to make it more simpler. Here’s a cartoony-basic drawing of Calvin smiled.

4. Now, the last: we got this. A universal symbol of happiness.

 

By making the same face more and more abstract by taking features away, it allows the face to mean more. The first photograph represents me alone, and not anybody else, smiling. While the last picture, it represents billions of people. The sequence progresses from meaning just one face, to meaning all faces. One faces represents many. That is the main idea. Just like the example in linguistic form I gave above: one specific characteristic of Gilang Danu could be broke down into many parts without so much cutting the meanings of the subjects. Of course the detail would be at loss, but the ‘bigger picture’ appeared hundred times greater. To make something specific became simpler may seems so naive and ‘stupid’ for some people, but this kind of approach is truly beneficial in our daily life, it isn’t a way to cut the meanings, not an escape from details and avoid the problems. In this kind of simplification, you can’t say I’m avoiding the problems to make all the details, no, the problems have been eliminated in my concept-making process. The smiley symbol may look simple, but the process of making it was rich and complicated. How lesser words could made richer meanings, and how partial information could triggered deeper meanings that is the magic of intuitions. 

That is amplification through simplification. That’s how we could interpret one simple smiley into greater understandings, and allowing our imaginations to wander around without losing its grip to the original meanings.

Lonely Me.

How many times did any of you find me uttering the word 'ALONE'? Whether they were on my verbal conversations, writings, facebook status, blogs, drawings, or everywhere? How many times did I said 'I am alone'?

Or did you know how many times I've been called 'freak', 'weird', or 'strange' in my life? 

Countless of time....hahahaha!

Yes, yes I saw it myself. WEIRD and ALONE are indeed some of the truest description of me.

Loneliness. I'm not talking about love life here (NO!). I'm talking about a way of life that makes one an outsider. I'm talking about the thin line between chaos and creation. I'm talking about creative life.
This is our starting point: creativity. Now, how it could be tied to such associative words like 'weird' or 'eccentric'? Even more, how could creativity could generate some of the loneliest moment of one's life?

Studies on creative people have consistently demonstrated that creativity is associated with openness to new ideas, risk-taking, and being inner-directed.  Creativity trait is often forced creative people at odds with the culture and people around them. Simply put, that is forced us to be a freak, weird, strange and eccentric. This perspective would explain why creative people are the way they often are and have yet to be institutionalized. This is the mother of all problem that follows later, including the loneliness.

Let's flashing back to my childhood. I perform below average in school and college (except for some specific study, I excel only at math and language back in my school days). My teachers often seen me as a poor student, for I loved to “daydreaming” and doing poorly on objective tests. I quickly got bored with the class progress. I wasn't interested in any materials my teachers gave me because...I wasn't learning anything new at all. I've already knew almost every materials the class offered. And I found that the classes and the subjects are overly structured and the tasks, they aren't that challenging.

This helps explain why creative children often have trouble in school, their intuitive minds wandering while their strict teachers are trying to force them to memorize information that these creative children instinctively see as irrelevant or trivial to understanding the “big picture” in life.

Now, from the personal life, we'll take it to greater scope of groups, community and society. The studies conducted by social psychologists have noted that some work groups suffer from groupthink, which is the tendency for some groups to feel superior to others and to downplay any evidence to the contrary. These kind of groups and community value conformity more than anything, thus they tend to resist new ideas, and saw those ideas as nothing but a threat. An eccentric will feel isolated and rejected by their surroundings in this type of environment. There are no spaces left for creative people in this climate.

Most people loved to be structured and scheduled, whereas the creative people tend to hate them (and wanted to smash them apart, atom by atom, if only we can ^_^) Many people at school, college or workplace become comfortable with their daily routines and over time they defend these routines as something akin to being "sacred". These kinds of people often bow to the timeworn expression:

“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,”

but they over apply this attitude and to them nothing is ever really “broken” and to suggest otherwise is to threaten the comfort of their work routines. They loved to indulge in their 'comfort zone' and resist whoever tried to shake them. Simply put, they hated the change and any spontaneous acts.

All of this suggests that creative people will often be at odds with people around them and frustrated by environments and organizational structures that are rigid and unbending. This is partially due to the fact that creative people are attracted to novelty and new ideas and ways of doing things, and their creative minds are often generating alternatives to accepted practices. Here comes the problem, the creative people often find it too damn difficult to communicate in a level everyone can comprehend. Not because those creatives had a trouble of linguistic expression, but mainly because the society rejects them. The creatives simply abandoned, forgotten, caged and forced to die--slowly. This could result to those lonely moments the creatives often encountered in their life. Isolation and silence, the fucking uncomfortable feeling where one had strong drive to express his/herself, but the external world won't listen to it, or can't understand any damn thing of our thoughts.

But to say that loneliness is just a result of our 'discriminative' surroundings only, that'll be so egoistic and self-centered. Creative people must also be taught to understand themselves and to appreciate that they have needs that can only be met in certain ways. The effort to battle the loneliness can't be done from the external sources only, it required the equal effort from both party. The creatives, they must work themselves as well as the society's effort to welcome them. The close-minded and overly idealist eccentrics people may not be welcomed at all in the society, if they can't communicate in the same level as everyone did. But the adaptable creatives, they can boost out their imaginations to limitless possibilities.

The creatives, surely, they're fucking gifted and talented. They can see, hear and imagine what others cannot. The individual's eccentric behavior is perceived to be the outward expression of his or her unique intelligence or creative impulse. In this vein, the eccentric's habits are incomprehensible not because they are illogical or the result of madness, but because they stem from a mind so original that it cannot be conformed to societal norms. And all of this doesn't come cheap, it come with a great cost, surely there must be a price we have to pay: mood swings, the difficulty comprehending social norms and expressing emotions, even to some extreme cases: mental illness (well, talk about balance of life, huh?) But all of these problems can be solved with some little understanding from the society and the individual, both. The society must learn to accept the eccentrics, for they can benefit us greatly, in other hand the eccentrics must open their mind as well to get out of their head sometimes and take a look at the real world they inhabited.

Welcome, Ghosts: The Project

Just today, I began the project Welcome, Ghosts. That is the gallery where I'll put any indulgence drawings, sketches, photographs or anything I've created with no particular reason. To say it's a ridiculous attempt or a lost cause--well, you may--but for me the main reason was to celebrate the uniqueness of human life, to see this world from different perspective and most importantly, to shared ideas, arguments and opinions in the most implicit and personal forms--that is to welcoming the ghost inside of you.

 

 

Click on the picture above to get there.

Global Message

 

Yup. Global citizen. And by global citizen, I don't think Chris (and the whole TED team) said anything about attitude and behavior changes. Globalization isn't about the change of lifestyle and the translations of imported physical commodities to our daily life. Globalization isn't about the cup of Starbucks you got per day, isn't about your Apple iPhone, isn't about your Nike shoes.

You can't say you are a global citizen when you wear Armani clothes, Levis' jeans and Converse shoes. That's not global citizen. If, you knew a thing about globalization based only from the physical products you possessed, the celebrities gossip you heard and the Hollywood movie you watched. Basically, you're just a caveman being exploited by capitalists.
But, you can say you're a global citizen when you knew about the news update on how Obama's new regulations can affect your daily life and the latest discovery of stem cell experimentation even though you're stuck in your room with kopi tubruk and a local cigarette.

Globalization is about open-mindedness. The willing to embrace others' opinion, arguments and ideas from around the world. It requires only the moral shift and adjustment--not lifestyle changes and westernized habit. Not about consumption of physical products, not about good fashion sense.
We won't be as advanced as Japan in the term of technology, we can't be as liberal as America in political climate, the best we can do is to cling to our already established cultures. We're Indonesians. You think you can equated yourself with an American just by dressed up like them? No. You can't. But you can be as advanced as any modern countries citizen, even though you're staying in your Batik clothes: by gaining more knowledge and information.

That's the answer. Today, the flows of information and communication had become more valuable than the flow of physical products. You are rich when you possessed more information than most people, even though you go by bus everyday. On the contrary, you are poor when you drive a Lexus yet do not knew about the current affairs in international world. The environment affects our behavior, yes I do understand, but it is not the automatic adaptation that'll bring the next societal evolution, that's not conformity without further thinking that made us develop, nor it is the close mindedness and foolishly hoping that we won't be touched by globalization. Why said bad things about Starbucks, why directly attacked McDonalds and KFC, why blaming Microsoft and Apple? They're just they are.
What power do you have to oppose them? What power do you have to resist them? You don't have any. The biggest roadblock to development is that we keep looking left and right for reassurance, rather than sticking to what we already have, and function it forward for leaping ground.

Globalization touched us already. And yes, it is unavoidable. This is no threat, nor it's something to frighten us. It's something to embrace and celebrate. The future is here. Today. Understand it and make a change.

Open your mind. Welcome to the new world.

Love.Detected

To detect if people—like me—are in love or not, actually there’s a ‘freaky’ way to tell it:

 

:-)

Grow Up

  15 years later >>

Yup. 15 years later...I'm as I've always been. (whoa, time goes by so fast!)

I’m 21

There are some questions linger in my head everyday. Even today, the day I turn 21, those questions popped up again.

“Who am I?
What good am I in this world?
What have I brought to the people around me?
Am I contribute enough in this life?
Or am I just a bystander?
Passively lived and did nothing my whole life? “

The questions have been there for too long. I guess it'll be wise for me now to answer it...

Some days ago, I sat alone in my campus hall. My head was filled with those questions. All this time, I perceived myself negatively. I always thought I was no one. Just a small boy in this world, lived under command and influence of the people around me. I'm just an average, too average to be noticed. Just a boy, try to live day by day, survive and kept alive. Nothing else.

"But who am I?"

Damn. The question popped again. I closed my eyes for a minute. Try to think about the answer. I sighed while slowly open my eyes and start to take a look at my surroundings. Examine every friends that passed by in front of me. All of a sudden, I realized. The answer to my questions just a few step away from where I sat. I looked at my friend's shirt. And there it was.

Funny I never realized it before. I should’ve knew it from the beginning. The answer of course can’t be answered by myself alone. That’ll be egocentric. It was my social surroundings that helped me find the answer. And it’s on my friends’ shirt, on my friends’ jacket, on the posters in hallway, on the photos tagged in facebook, on every single things I create and reached its messages to the audiences. Ah, I just realized it’s not WHO I AM that matters the most, it’s my ACT and WHAT I DO that defines me. I have one passion that I continuously strive for my whole life, I have one love that would never die, that is drawing. Long since I've been wondering where could drawing took me in this world, and now I know the answer: it could took me everywhere. And I know I’m not popular with kindness and warm welcome, I’m no rich guy either, I just have one thing that I can give to the world: I can give them my drawings. Unconsciously, I've lived my dream. I've lived my life the way I always wanted.

My goal in this life was too simple: happiness. And no, it wasn't about money, it wasn't about big house and luxurious life. It's never about what can I get, instead it's about what can I give. And yes, now that I’ve seen the facts: I know I already gave the best to my surroundings, I've contributed in the life of other people around me. I've gave them something. I lived my life the way I always wanted.

And just now--while I wrote this note--from the loneliness of my bedroom: I smiled.
I smiled to the blank paper in front of me, I smiled to my computer screen. I smiled to no one in particular and to everyone as well. I smiled to the people of the world, friends, family, and most importantly, I smiled to myself. Yes, I smiled to myself while saying:

"Your life has just began. You’re only 21, and already you've give something to the world around you. But, remember the road is far from over, there are more in this life to be discovered. Stick with your pencil, stick with your ideas and imagination, hang on to the love of your life. Keep drawing. Keep creating. Keep enriching this world. For you are--we are all--gifts. We are all miracles. So, for everybody out there, go find yourself. Live your passion, love the life. Get busy living, or just get busy dying. We're all miracles waiting to happen. "

 

(I wish there are more spaces for me to put all of my work here… but I guess I never can. Hahaha. Limited space. Sorry.)

Happy birthday to me! :-)

The Rich World of Imaginations

(In my last post, I said something about languages, and how it helped us to discover more about our objective world. Now, now, let’s talk about something beyond that. Something…beyond our objective world. )

And what is it beyond our objective world?
Ideas, imaginations and intuitions.

Here, I tried to explore the rich world of ideas, thoughts and intuition. That's it explaining something that isn't--logically--allowed to be expressed by our limited language. So, the best I can do is to make it as abstract as possible, as imaginative as my mind allow, because my intention wasn't to make you perceived it objectively, but rather….subjectively. (So that we can discuss it later in the “real” world, if you know what I mean….^_^) 
This is a lost cause of course, since no one should draw ideas nearer to audiences, because ideas itself--well--it is draw you further from this world of physical forms.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is a failed attempt. :-)

“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”  – Bertrand Russell

 

The Limits of Human.

Humankind are tied to the sensory world they perceived and are likely to be 'bounded' by them. Some wise people said proudly in my face,

'I've explored life. All of it. The experience of joy and pain. I knew this world like the back of my hand."

Yeah, one can describe this world beautifully (or disgustingly) with the aid of language and symbol that represent the world and what lies within it, but what of the 'unspeakable', the 'unreal', the 'things that are too perfect for words'? How can they be described? How can you show explicitly something so implicit? How can you brought a very subjective thoughts into broader audiences, to made it objective, to shared it collectively?

Here's when the world of ideas and imagination takes place. Here's the art of daydreaming and deep thinking, here it is when one condition takes place. The condition of All is Mind.

Welcoming this condition--for the 'sensing' people--is ridiculous. A big joke. Some people have tendency to perceived the world only as narrow as what can be sensed with your five senses. IMSO (that's it--in my SUPERIOR opinion) this world is bigger than that. Come on people, escape humanity, embrace insanity for a while. Get out of this world, of this planet of water and soil: imagine the universe.

Imagine the unifying principle of every living (and dead) things. Don't limit yourself to what's seen, what's heard, smelled, touched, licked, try what's IMAGINED. As simple as that. Get beyond the dreams of Werner Heisenberg. Be transcendental, shake loose your humanity, and try to be an alien (not a outer planet creature!), the outsider that were able to see the complete picture as well as the thorough details. Go on, think! Imagine!

 

The Limitless of Human

Ah, you must’ve wondered, what is it about thinking? Well, to be honest, human as mammal have the natural capability to THINK (so sad some people didn’t aware about this capability. Ooops.)

Mammals evolved on this planet about 200 million years ago. One type of mammal, the hominid, began using audible signals to convey meaning about 4 million years ago. Language, as we comprehend that word, began much less than 4 million years ago. And how did language came from? Yup, ideas and thoughts. Even the most universal and complex system, such as language, came from the process of thinking. Thinking produces subjective thoughts. Thinking goes on all the time even while we sleep (now I have the answer, the reason why I always having trouble sleeping….) This leads to the conclusion that thinking was been happening on this planet at least 200 million years before human language existed on this planet.

Those individuals who accept the science of evolution (they’re rare species among my friends ^_^) must then conclude that humans may think in linguistic forms some small percentage of the time. But I’ll give you the sad fact, my intuitive friends….that most thought is not in linguistic form. It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought – correct me if I’m wrong. It’s too true that most of our thinking, won’t be likely to went out from our head and perceived by other people. For we ourselves, can’t express it explicitly. Our languages didn’t allow to do that, we have no words to describe it. The result of this maybe abnormality or insanity, you lose in your own head, but if only we can control our thinking, better yet if we can express what we’ve thought in our head to other people, surely, the world will be brighter. Wander in your head a while, sketch something there, imagine, make things up, that’s the key to the next big step in human evolution. I, for instance, never wished any peace of mind in my head (and it never came, anyway), because all I need here is total chaos in my head, explosions of ideas, the racing of concepts and thoughts, and like the entropy in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the result of chaos in your head, would emerged something wonderful.

"The world always seems brighter when you made something that wasn't there before." – Neil Gaiman

So, my point is, that the rich world may not be discovered, unless, we begin from ourselves. From such small thing as thinking, we--these chimpanzees--had build nations, established industries, even went to outer space! Where in the hell is humankind now without the aid of intuitions, idea and imaginations? Without daydreaming and deep thinking, there'll be no civilizations, there'll be no science, no symbol and no language. Einstein won't hypothesized relativity theory, Hawking won't bother with the Origin of Universe, and Newton won't discover gravity.

Thinking, that is the key to limitless world. Open up the door that is your head, and go explore what’s inside, don’t give a damn about sharing it to other people, indulge in yourself for a while. When you have what other people don’t, you’ve succeed.  You have ideas, even though it’s locked in your head, even though you can never express it with our limited language, you’ve succeed. For you are rich. You are rich, and you’ll die a better person than the ones without any ideas in their heads.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
~Albert Einstein

Languages and Universe

Let’s leave behind the drawing stuff for a bit. Now let’s talk about something slightly different: language.

“The limit of my world is the limit of my language.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

Language 101: what is language? The main symbol and tools in communication, or so did I say. Language is an universal system of logical expression in explicit forms such as movement and body gestures, voices in verbal sayings, writings, drawings and so on. Languages are used in our daily life. Using language, for us human, is just as automatic as breathing. There’s no human activities that doesn’t involve language. For language itself, it is a picture of our universe—our objective universe to be precise. For instance, how could you describe ‘tree’ without saying a word ‘tree’, or writing it down, or draw it? No one could understand you if you point the clouds in the sky to represents a tree. Language is vital. Language is damn too important to be ignored. IMSO, our life is language-centric, if it’s not our life is language itself.

 

 (OMG. I have no proper language to say anything about this image…) 

 

You may called that statement as an exaggeration, but frankly I didn’t try to exaggerate anything. Long since I wonder about how small this world is without the aid of language, and how astonishing was the fact that by learning about languages and symbol, I could discover more about the universe and the life within. In my childhood, I often wonder: how big this universe could be? I often asked it to the member of my family, take my father for example, he said:

“The universe is limitless, it is as big as the sky.”

Notice something there? It’s an irony. My father said: ‘the universe is limitless’, but he contradict himself by saying, ‘it is as big as the sky.’ The limitation I found was ‘the sky’—it’s an objective word, it represent something that can be seen by my eyes, and by saying ‘the sky’, unintentionally, my father had restrict my imaginations about how big this universe can be. What about the other thing behind the sky? What about galaxy and star clusters? What about heaven? What about God? My questions can span forever, as long as I know the words for ‘things in outer space’ and kept saying it to my father. (Am I making myself clear?) See there, I could go on and wander around the universe because I know the words to represent my ideas and imaginations about the outerspace stuff, if I—for instance—haven’t yet know the word ‘galaxy’, ‘planets’ or ‘nebula’, I won’t questioned further, thus I won’t gained any further knowledge, thus I will keep silenced in the darkness of ‘the sky’ only.

The world is expanding along with the expand of our language. In 500 BC, do anyone know the words ‘internet’, ‘iPod’ or ‘computer’? I don’t think so. Let alone the word, the object it represents, haven’t yet existed. How could you named something that wasn’t—objectively—exist in this world of width, height, depth and time? But as the nature allowed man to create, man to discovers, so does exist the allowance for man to label. The association between the word and the object it represents kept evolving along with the vast development of human life. I knew only the word ‘flower’ before I started to realize that ‘flower’ could be broke down to many: tulips, roses, orchids, or lily. There, as my vocabulary storage expand, so does my knowledge about the world. So true what Wittgenstein said, my world is limited by my use of language, by the symbol I functioned to represented my logical thoughts.

And there are more in this world that haven’t yet named, haven’t yet discovered. I believe someday we’ll find them, we’ll name them and associate them with us. Someday, we’ll claim them as the part of this rich world, welcomed them to our life and make ourselves familiar with them.

Someday, there’ll be no room in this world for the word ‘stranger’. Someday we’ll discover everything. Yes, we will.

 

(OMG again. The picture is….wordless….)

Drawing Is Art. Drawing Is Science.

Draw! by Gilang Danu

The vast developed world of today brought many changes we never dreamed before. Take a look at the latest news in science, seems like a sci-fi dreams come true, huh? How about the art? Just look at the CGI in latest Hollywood movie, it’ll pop your eyes out. And how does drawing drawing fit in here? Well, drawing still as it’s always been: a primitive activity that went against the mighty of time.
Drawing is timeless. From the ancient culture of the past, to today's meeting room: people still function their brain, reacting their hand to form a specific shape. That is drawing.

My earlier post said something about the communications advantage of drawing. Now, I’d like to write something about drawing again, from the perspectives of science and art.

May 9th, 2009, the New York Academy of Science held a symposium regarding the subject of Two Cultures—that is science vs art. The issue was first raised by C.P Snow’s novel some years ago, in which Snow questioned about the two separate branches of human life, the heartless and rigorous science VS the sociable yet subjective art. Where will drawing take side in this?

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
~Albert Einstein

I’ll say drawing take part in both art and science. What is it Da Vinci without the aid of Phytagoras’ equation? And how would Einstein discover relativity without consulting himself to pen and paper, sketching Cartesian diagram of physical dimension?

Art and science—really—they came from the very same mother, they're the brainchild of human's idea. The result of deep thinking and daydreaming, the outcome of the wildest imagination and untamed intuition. There’s no significant difference between art and science. I shit you not. Let’s say: what is it the difference between mathematical equation and a pencil lead?

They’re tools! Correct!

Mathematic symbol and a painting is merely a symbol for us to understand more about universe. To say that art is 'science-less' and science is 'art-less', IMSO is totally stupid. Even more stupid is the person who distinguish that scientist is 'scholarly smart' and artist is 'drop-out dumb', for intellectual life is both more and less integrated than just a brick wall between art and science.

"Science and art have that in common that everyday things seem to them new and attractive”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

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Accompanied song: Deftones - Teenager
via FoxyTunes

Why Sketch?

(Ummm, after reconsidering myself many times, it would be unfair for me just to repost my old blog—the one in Live Spaces—here, so I chose to leave my old blog just as it is (but deleting every posts) there. From now on, I will treat this as a new blog, not a readress from my old one.)

Okay now…where to begin? Oh yes. Let me explain again about this me and this blog.

I’m an artist myself (up to certain extent), a sketchbook artist to be exact. There’s something fascinating about drawing and sketchbook for me. Seriously. I’m in love with sketches, doodles and drawings. The chemistry between me, pencils and paper had began since the earliest time of my childhood--I would draw anything almost anytime when I was a kid. From my house's walls, the wooden furniture, to the morning paper my father used to read, nothing escapes my doodles. :-)

But honestly, I never took any formal training in drawing or anything about visual art in my life. Ever. (Except some drawing classes in my primary school.) And there are, of course, some reasons behind my strange choice. First thing first, for me drawing wasn’t just about skill. It’s not about hand-eye coordination, it’s not about nimble fingers. IMSO (that’s it in my SUPERIOR opinion) drawing is about communication. It’s about sharing your thoughts and ideas to the audiences. Drawing is about thinking. Daydreaming and imagination. Much like writings or verbal communications, drawing too is primordial and fundamental means to translate, document, record and analyze the worlds we inhabit.

A friend of mine once said,

“Sometimes I envy you. You can draw anything that popped in your head, that’s cool. I’d like to be able to do that, I’d like to sketch as well…but again, I hesitate. My drawings are ugly as hell.”

Wow. I was amazed, and saddened as well. Umm, my friend, I got to tell you something: to be honest, my drawings are also ugly. There are many more artists out there who can draw better than I do, but I couldn’t care less, could I? For drawings itself, it isn’t about how beautiful the outcome will be. NO. Absolutely no. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no one can measure beauty. It’s about the message you’ll bring to the audience (or to yourself). It’s about creation and invention. It’s about showing explicitly something implicit like thoughts or ideas. It’s about enriching yourself and others as well. And that’s that about drawing. Like poetry or mathematics equations, drawing is a tool—a very primitive tool—to discover a whole new possibilities of this universe.

That’s why I’m setting up this blog. Because I believe in the communication power of drawing and sketch. And hopefully, anyone else will believe it too. So now, to my friend, and to everyone as well, what’s with the hesitation? Go on there and draw. Show the whole world the rich minds of intuitions and imaginations. Don’t hold up. Just like talking, drawing can also help you communicate with others, with the advantage of permanence.

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"We should talk less and draw more. Personally I would like to renounce speech altogether, and like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches."
~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Self Portrait 1.0, by Gilang Danu

Early Sketch: An Intoduction

Welcome! Ummm…well, this blog is a re-address from my old one in Live Spaces. Due to my bad maintenance and lack of features in that address, I erased my every post there and moved everything here (but I didn't delete my Live Spaces address, for the sake of indulgence smiling I guess ^_^)

Cut the mumbo-jumbo, this blog is my online journal or diary, to share anything in my daily life with you all.

See you...

~gilang.