Small Reflections

A series of thoughts about labyrinths and the like, captured for future reference.

Labyrinths and Transformation

The steps we take from where we are to where we want to be. An ideal goal, obscured, eventual, not directly accessible.

We run away from ourselves in a thousand different ways. We lose our souls a thousand times each day. But we are always attached to reality, no matter how detached we distract ourselves away.

“Attached to reality” implies a duality. For one moment, please focus on this spiraling pattern. Follow the start of the labyrinth to the center with your finger.

Dreaming

I’ve dreamed of spending three days in a dream, only to fight my way to consciousness through the fluttering of my eyelids.

I’ve dreamed that I was awake, I further convinced myself of wakefulness by dreaming I found everything I percieved as being realistic.

I’ve dreamed of not being able to discern the difference between dreams and reality.

And somewhere, by The Circular Ruins, a man lies dreaming.

Perception

There is often more noticed after mindfulness related meditation practices. Clear vision. Noted thoughts. Tender feelings.

Perhaps it’s not about perception. Instead, existence. Being full, close, present.

The Internet

Devised by men, destined to be deciphered.

How many hours of YouTube videos do you need to watch to understand? How long do you need to contemplate afterwards for understanding to arise? What is there to understand? What lies between the pixels, the frames, the opinions? The gap of discomfort.

Control

I don’t want to feel this way.

I don’t want to feel this way.

I don’t want to be this way.

Pushing Boundaries

“The work of art is not only about the things it depicits but it is about itself as well.”

Phillip Pullman, A Bar At The Folies-Bergere

When painting, how can we capture the effect of light reflected in glass? When coding, to what extent can we manipulate the elements of the screen and provide novel methods of computer interaction?

To return to the ethos of breaking things, or using them in unintended ways; I recently uploaded an image to dada.art, a website that delibrately limits creative expression within a small set of drawing tools.

Discovering new freedoms doesn’t mean that we have to exploit them however. I’d like to add half a dozen new effects to the labyr.in/th/ website, by manipulating the title elements that display the name of the site in the tab. Will these add to the user experience, or the final creative product? No, I don’t think so. I would like to play with the favicon however. I think that this is small enough to make a nice effect.

As Pullman concludes, the best art is a balance between the subject and the nature of painting itself. I’m leaning quite heavily towards the nature of coding, it’s time to lighten up a little.