Nikio

This is my latest lecture from the conference in Rogaška Slatina, where we discussed the problems with the development of creativity in schools. My lecture was done in collaboration with dr. Mojca Juriševič. The deal was that I present some more practical problems and solutions and she backs them up with research data from the psychological department. This formula worked really well and I hope we'll do that again sometime

Unfortunately this is in Slovenian again... This lecture is shorter so I might find some time to translate it, but since it is licensed with CC license (by-nc), you can download it and add subtitles

It seems like years since my last valuable posting (if it had any value anyways...). It is not that I have any kind of writers block or anything, it's just that I don't have much time or that I'm uncertain about things that I want to write about. It's like I don't have all the details figured out yet.

But there is one thing that I've been thinking about lately and I find it very important within the media theory. And that is the question of resolution. I would define it as the amount of information per physical measure of it's medium. Huh... let me explain.

Basically what I mean is that if you have a high-resolution image would mean that every pixel is well used and that there are no parts of an image where information is lost. For example; if you resize 600x400 image to 6000x4000 pix, you actually loose resolution because now you have the same amount of information with a lot more pixels used. So a goal of every photographer would be to have as high resolution photos as possible (not in the terms of actual pixel count but in the terms of how efficiently are they used). This is why we need very sharp lenses. But this is not limited to technical terms. An image that contains parts that don't support the "whole story" of it is just as well a low resolutioin image. It wasted it's space on unnecessary elements and therefore the ratio between space that is used well and the whole space is very low. This is the kind of resolution I want to focus on.

This roule would apply to any kind of media. A high-resolution speech is a speech where every word counts. There is not bullshit in it - take one word out and everything colapses. A high-resolution storyline would produce a movie where every sceene servs the function of the general narrative, perhaps even on more levels (not just to support one aspect of the story, but many aspect or even sub-plots). A high-resolution chess game contains moves that serve more than one function at the time (attack, defense and perhaps material gain). I could go on with this, but I hope you see the point...

So why is that important you might ask? I think it is very important because every "piece of medium" is a limited resource. A newspaper can contain only this many of pages, so it is very important how we use them. And even a single page can cover only this much of space, again, let's use it wisely. The same goes for a photograph (only this many of pixels), music (only this many of bars), dance (only this many of moves)...

Thanks for reading.

These past few weeks were really exciting. Beside graduating from college (not that I want to boast... but... woooohaaaa.. I'm a Jedi now ) I did a lot of other interesting stuff. There is a book design that goes to print on monday (an other one is on the way) and several educational projects as well. On top of that I did (and planned) a couple of photoshoots.

Read more...

Today I visited the frist in a series of three lectures (link to pdf, 800kb) by Dr. Or Ettlinger who obtained his Doctorade on the field of virtual architecture or virtual space in general. The lecture answered many of fundamental questions of virtual(-ity) and the least I can say is that it was mindblowing. I would really like to share some insights based on my notes and my own thoughts from the lecture.
So here it goes.

Read more...

I believe that each of us has been at least for once in his/hers lifetime asking those fundamental questions about time and it's nature. Many people approach these dilemmas from the physical point of view and some of them, like Einstein, were quite successful.

But we all know that this is not the end of this story. Einstein could very well be right, but changes of time become significant only when we're dealing with powerful gravitational fields, high masses or moving that is close to the speed of light.

But what about the time that we, humans, perceive? It may be relative just as well, but under different laws.

Quite recently I've read a book by Steve Taylor who deals with this questions in his book Making time.

The book could be divided in three parts. First part talks about our perception of time in normal circumstances, the second part (which is a bit harder for me to accept) talks about paranormal experiences like precognition, and the third part tries to apply the previously discussed theory into praxis, with a single goal: to manipulate your perceived time, either by making it longer when you're having fun, or to run it faster when you're in pain (or in doctor's waiting room, prison, waiting in a line... etc). Let's examine those three parts separately.

1st part, Chapters 1-6
Author starts by introducing 5 "laws" of psychological time and I hope I'm not violating any law or giving you a spoiler by writing them down:
1. Time speeds up as we get older
2. Time slows down when we are exposed to new experiences and environments.
3. Time passes quickly in states of absorption.
4. Time passes slowly in states of non-absorption.
5. Time often passes slowly, or stops altogether, in situation where conscious mind or normal ego is in abeyance.

I think most of these things are rather self-explanatory, especially if you think of the situations from your own life. Christmas does seem to come faster every year around, and time seems longer when you go abroad (when you return home it feels like you were away for at least a month, while for others it was just an other boring and short week), time does seem to pass quickly when you are absorbed (movies, video games...) and it passes so slowly when you are not absorbed (waiting at your dentist's waiting room). The last law describes situations of meditation, car accidents (when everything seems to be moving in slow motion when you try to recall it) or "in the Zone" experiences described by athletes, artists or performers.

Author spends about 150 pages for this argument and gives really detailed explanation of this theory. He cites many scientific papers and research reports. Reading these chapters was thrilling and it gave me chills... I only wish I could tell you more, but it is hard for me now to condense 150 pages into one paragraph.

2nd part, 7th Chapter
Second part is in my opinion chapter 7 when author tries to argue that linear perception of time is an illusion. While the psychological part of the argument (involving theory of ego) could be OK, he then moves on to the quantum theory which he simplifies just a bit too much. OK, it is proven for the time to be relative across the universe and it could be true that the linear timeline that we sense isn't exactly what really goes on in the universe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that some people have precognitive or similar abilities. I mean, quantum theory is so deep, abstract and yet still unknown, that even one of it's great masters, Richard Feynman, once said: "If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory."
Author should AT LEAST mention that many of those cases could be explained simply by selection bias.

3rd part, Chapters 8-9
So, now that we learned so much about the time perception; how to manipulate our perceived time? Should we travel around like crazy? Change jobs every couple of months? Or perhaps live in a boredom for the rest of the life to make it seem sooo looooooong. Hm... I'm not giving that up If the author finds his way to this blog.... well, it just wouldn't be fair, would it



Overall it is an amazing book, which answered many of my fundamental questions about time vs. psychology. I can't recommend it enough.

I hope now we could debate this stuff within the comments section below. You are welcome to post your thoughts and questions.