Tarsila

Trissy's portrait was a real jewel. I mean, I don't believe it'll have any value to the galeries, like Tink's, but I'm extremely proud of the outcome. The whole technical concept came up while I was organizing things in the atelier. I found these tiny canvases I did in the third semester of the art course, when we were tutored by Yolanda Bessa. She had this huge knowledge of materials and methods, and taught us about toxic materials and a few techniques. She gave us ten easy lessons in oil painting, perhaps the only lessons in oil painting my class ever had. One of them was a technique used by old renaissance painters. The image is modelled in ochre, black and white, resulting in a monochrome yellowish image. Then, once dried, it receives all the colours applied in thin, diluted, transparent layers of paint. In my little exercise, my doodles looked like one of those watercolored photographs from the early 1900s. You know, the artist would take someone's black and white picture, then color it using watercolors. There's some kind of irreality in those colors: they're vibrant, and yet so dirty. See the way her lips and her hair shine and the way the background seems dead...

So, here you are. If the Fairy's portrait left much to be desired, I think Trissy's will make amends.

Kasparov vs. Deep Blue

Rafaella

So, this is the Fairy's portrait. I admit it isn't the best I've done lately, but I'm begining to get extremely critical about my own stuff... Tried a few experiments in this one. It's a diptych (a composition with two canvases), the one on the left is a computer generated image printed on canvas paper or similar (I still haven't printed it, though...). The one on the left is acrylic on canvas. The choice of acrylic instead of the usual oils has it's reasons. I wanted to try the media I used when I started painting, to see what I'm capable of doing with it nowadays. In fact, I wanted to paint Lilly in acrylics too. See, acrylics, once dry, turn into a thin layer of colored plastic. And the action of painting these girls I barely know carries a shallow and artificial undertone to it, like a perversion or obssession: no need to actually know these girls, just to worship their image. Plastic and artificiality seem to walk hand in hand. The idea of creating a diptych comes from this challenge: I wanted to see the diferences between what a machine can print and what a human can print. I'll admit, the computer version (on the left) looks better...

Para Eliane:
Tédio. Então ela foi andar. Garotinha de sete anos, talvez oito, andando no cemitério. Enterro de alguém que ela nem conhecia, de uma família amiga dos pais. Ao lado de toda aquela cena parada, logo ali, um outro caixão branco. Um diminuto caixão branco. Ela chegou mais perto pra ver: era uma garotinha. De sete anos, talvez oito. Nem se parecia muito com ela. Mas naquele momento, algo aconteceu que ficou tingido, cicatrizado, cauterizado nela para sempre.
Paremos a cena pra dar uma olhada. Garotinha frente ao caixão branco da outra garotinha. Ela e a outra. A meiga e a morta. O começo e o fim. O pessoal subjetivo e o impessoal objetivo e inevitável.
De lá em diante, ela passou a ser duas. Em tudo. A vida dividida ao meio com brutalidade dissonante.
Avançando para um futuro mais próximo, ela toca guitarra em uma banda de punk rock. Com unhas delicadamente pintadas. Ela se veste de cores escuras, seu cabelo negro nanquim. E chora porque se emociona, e não sabe bem o que dizer. Ela fotografa polaroides de estética de decomposição, coisas quebradas e terrenas. E coloca lado a lado com belas fotos de um céu azul zen. Ela desenha siamesas com traço pueril, seus olhos num tédio de cemitério.

Felicidades, Eli.

Yet another personality test...

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	High
Schizoid:	Moderate
Schizotypal:	Very High
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	High
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

Results are as expected...

Blog da semana:
Oba, mais uma na onda de personagens de histórias infantis!
O espelho de Alice

Li pouco e, pelo que entendi, é uma garota de 26 anos que trabalha na UOL. Tem um jeito gostoso de escrever e um layout interessante.

On further news, I'm taking a crash course on italian next month. Part of preparations for spending a few months in Florence at the end of the year studying art history (straight from the horse's mouth!). With my current level of spanish, it shouldn't be too hard. Although word has it that, once you learn italian, any spanish you once had tends to get rather fuzzy. It's because both languages have many similarities. I remember getting that between spanish and portuguese. Once I learned spanish, my portuguese grammar went haywire. I was building sentences in spanish structure, with portuguese words. Mayhem!!

Coisas que não mencionei do feriado:
Na sexta, fomos eu e a Tink a uma academia de escalada. Muito bom! Todas as paredes e até o teto são cheios daquelas pedrinhas aparafusadas para escalar. Cordas penduradas em pontos estratégicos para que um segure o outro enquanto este sobe. É um ótimo exercício: saí de lá com os braços e as pernas detonados e me sentindo ótimo! Com certeza irei mais vezes. Outra dessas coisas que eu sempre quis fazer. Agora só falta rapel e outros espotes radicais.
No sábado, aniversário da Trissy. Festa na casa dela na Serra. muita gente que eu nunca vi na vida, amigos do curso de administração dela. Ela está com um rolo com um professor de francês/artista plástico. Ele tem um jeitão requintado de francês e cozinha muito bem. Tink ficou ajudando-o enquanto eu aproveitava a ausência do pai da Trissy, que também é artista plástico e foi meu mentor na pintura em acrílico (por onde comecei), para usar o ateliê dele nos fundos da casa. Precisava dar toques finais no retrato da Fairy e minhas tintas já tinham acabado. Descobri as maravilhas do medium acrílico (espécie de solvente para tinta acrílica). Dei de presente para Trissy o retrato dela. Ela adorou. Já estou terminando a cópia, que ficará comigo.
Por último, vi Todo-poderoso (é assim?). Não tenho muito a dizer, apesar de ser um filme bem divertido. Tá certo que faz uma apologia ao cristianismo, mas com esse tema, não tem como evitar. Não vou criticar muito.
Planos para ir ver Spirited Away com Nana-chan, Thelus e Tink no fim-de-semana que vem.

Surreal revelations IX:

What if there was a way to implant and erase memories into the brain? Yeah, I know this is old science fiction, but I started wondering about it in closer details. In the old sci-fi movies, when the individual discovers that all his memories are false, he starts questioning his own identity (anyone seen Total Recall?). We are not only what we remember to be, but what others tell us. I might have not seeked an art course after all if people hadn't told me I draw well. And if lies can be told and memories can be implanted, how can we trust anything? How can we trust ourselves?
But you see, it gets really weird when you realize that anything up to this exact moment could be a lie implanted into your brain. What you did just a second ago, even the meaning you comprehended from what you read just now, could be an idea implanted into your brain. Go ahead, read it again just to be sure. For all you know, you could have been placed in that chair just now by a bunch of men in white clothes who just left the room and flipped a switch that turned you on. They left you with no clue of how they erased your memory, nor of how they implanted the new one, making you believe that such procedure is impossible. All they gave you was a dim puzzle of recollections that tells you who they want you to be. Your identity.

*Sigh* The cliché of 1990's sci-fi.

So I rented Animatrix this week.




Nine short films giving some background information on the Matrix Reloaded plot, as well as some other poetic developments on the whole idea. Here are the ones that drew my attention:


The Final Flight of the Osiris, created by the same director of Final Fantasy: the spirits within". Nice CG graphics, and a cool story that ties with the main plot of Reloaded. They even mention the Osiris on the movie. It was the ship that discovered that the machines were digging towards Zion.




The Second Renaissance, directed by Mahiro Maeda, the same director of Blue Submarine 6, tells the story of how AI was created and took over the world. Makes you regret being a human...




Kid's story. In Reloaded, there's this kid who keeps following Neo, saying he saved him. I guess this is that kid's story.




Beyond. About a house in the middle of a city that seems to be filled with matrix glitches. Weird things happening. The house is said to be haunted. Cool anime style and humorous antics.




Detective story, directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the same director of Cowboy Bebop and Macross Plus, about this detective hired to find a hacker called Trinity (yes, the one and only...). It has a Blade Runner feel to it, that mix of futuristic hi-tech and 1950's style.




Matriculated, by the same director of Aeon Flux, Peter Chung. And you can tell even without reading the credits just by looking at the way the robots move and their design. Chung switches the roles in the plot, showing us these human rebels who capture an AI robot and plug it into their own matrix, making it believe, once inside it, that it has gained a human body and even causing it to love a human. In this case, it will serve humans dearly in the real world as a guardian, fighting other AI's. So, in a way, man creates machines to use as tools. Machines overpower man and enslave him to use as a tool, a power source. Chung takes the next step, as man overpowers machine and enslaves it to use it as a tool. It's a complicated thing. Chung is one of those directors who make you question if you actually understood th whole thing. Just as I like it. Obviously why this is the longest comment.

Neste exato momento, uma criança está brigando com a babá lá fora. É um garotinho de não mais que cinco anos. A babá quer levá-lo para casa e ele se recusa a ir. Ele grita a plenos pulmões que ela é chata. E quando isso não basta, desenvolve o protesto para chamá-la de "chatonilda". A plenos pulmões. Esse tipo de cena faz você entender a relevância de xingamentos, palavrões. Um "puta" tem mais impacto do que esse menino vai conseguir com seu "chatonilda", mesmo gritando desse jeito. Aliás, o impacto da palavra compensa o volume da voz. Ou seja, nem precisa ser dito em voz muito alta. Mas obviamente ainda não ensinaram essas coisas da vida a ele. Tudo a seu tempo.

Dadaist revelation IX
Three of them faced me today, as I was leaving the university. That same old bulshit about me invading their turf. The moon was full as in a prophecy... I wish it hadn't been such a good day: I went so well on my marketing presentation, that I was willing to ignore them. I was so blissful that I didn't feel like facing three of them at once. Two others could be heard somewhere. Five at once. Had it been a crappy day and had there been fewer of them, I would gladly beat the shit out of them to let off some steam. I would have done quite a lot of damage before they gave up. And I would have taken quite a lot as well. But those adrenaline-ladden moments kinda make life worth living.

But there'll be worst days. And more full moons...

Once again, control over the aftermath. No one was going to show up. So we could just stay there and hold each other on the verge of sleep. This time, the tiny red and blue dots were substituted for green and black: the alarm clock shone a dim green neon. 7:43pm. All the rest was darkness and an even dimmer light of an ominous full moon. We lay on our backs and she would quote passages of Nabokov' novel that she was reading. Wide pelvises... And I would tell her of my childhood. Of body hair and more bizarre issues. Green neon. Did you see "Run Lola, run"?. Same thing. Only the lighting was a different colour. We engaged on a conversation about breasts somewhere along the way. And I kept thinking of particular breasts that had been present in my life. God, that was lame... Anyway, she had had enough of my old ghosts. So I kept this to myself. 8:04. Perhaps there's still time for...

E o blogspot entrou em uma nova versão que agora não me deixa publicar qualquer tipo de acento ou trema ou coisas o gênero. Ele substitui qualquer desses por um ponto de interrogação. Estejam avisados.

Tempos modernos...

Gente, a festa junina do clube perto da minha casa virou baladinha! Antes era uma coisa t?o tranqüila, a maior parte do p?blico era quase senil e ficava sentada admirando "essa juventude de hoje". Dava pra andar numa boa e aproveitar as brincadeiras das barraquinhas, as comidas, dançar um forr?. De repente, de dois anos pra c?, a tal juventude lotou o lugar! Um bando de patricinhas de dezessete anos, com vozes estridentes e celulares com brilho de neon azul. Cabelos alisados com chapinha e uma atitude nojenta de superioridade. E eu que costumava ir para a festa durante os três dias de duraç?o e ficar l? até as ?ltimas horas, n?o consegui passar da terceira hora de festa...

This week`s anti-cultural tip is:
Happy Tree Friends.

It`s not as terrible as it sounds... Basically, it`s a bunch of animations (be patient on the download...). They start out with cute little critters who all of a sudden turn psycho on each other! WARNING: lot`s of blood and gore...