Metaphysics: a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.
How can we tell what is real and what is not?
3D animation, for example, is becoming more and more sophisticated with each passing year. In this short film combining live action and, you've guessed it, animation, one young man sits down to write a childhood friend a letter, describing just how this state of affairs came about.
It is almost as if he is convincing himself of his own argument, in order to give himself the courage to, once and for all, discover whether the world in which we live is true or not.
Plenty of food for thought, then, in this short film from Auke Rick Akkerman and David Oldenburger.
We might be a little in danger of coming over all Monty Python if we pose the question what has NASA ever done for us? It is a good question, however and one which we will seek to answer in an occasional series of articles, beginning with this one. The real alien ant farm!
Generations of children have been fascinated by ant farms (not to mention adults who often use the kids wanted one as an excuse) but when it comes to dirt, you can’t really see a great deal of what is going on inside. Enter NASA. Back in 2003, the Space Agency wanted to see how ants would create their tunnels in zero gravity. However, there was a problem, not so much for Houston but for the ants.
The problem was gravity, specifically the almighty amount of it associated with getting a shuttle off terra firma and in to space. If sand had been used then it would shift under the gravity and inevitably crush the life out of the ants. A container full of squished ants would not be very useful for any sort of study in space – unless it was to be a taste test of some kind.
Life and death can be observed through this clear gel. So, how do you get the tiny harvester ants with their powerful jaws and tenacious nature up beyond the blue? NASA rose to the problem and their solution was to create the gel that you can see here. Because of its chemical composition it does not collapse during launch. Wouldn’t that happen to the ants too? The answer is no – ants are incredibly resilient and able to withstand the G force of lift off with no problem. Hardly a surprise when you consider they can lift up to twenty times their body weight.
Furthermore, scientists could put all the food and water necessary to sustain the ants on their trip inside the gel. What’s more they were also able to put in anti-fungal agents and antibiotics to help ensure the ants would not get ill! The other main advantage of the gel is that it is clear. Scientists had always found it difficult to get to grips with how ants did the tunnelling and how exactly they navigated underground because – to state the obvious – they could not observe them doing it properly.
So, you have something that works as both habitat and nutrition for the ants, which meant that all the astronauts had to do was to sit back and observe how they went about the business of tunnelling without any gravity. The answer was pretty much as usual but the question had to be answered. The main difference was that the tunnels were wigglier than those made by the same species in the same gel back home on Earth.
However, business folk were not tardy when it came to recognizing the commercial potential of this amazing aqua blue gel and soon enough the old concept of the ant farm was overhauled to this amazing sight. So, it’s not just users of non-stick frying pans who have benefited from the efforts of NASA after all!
Go on, admit it! Just for a moment you thought these guys were real. No? Well, I did – and perhaps I do need my eyes tested but these gentlemen can be found at the Bang Kung military training camp in Samut Songkhram, Thailand. Our guess is that they are there to demonstrate defensive techniques to new recruits rather than being art for art’s sake. Whatever the reason I think they are pretty cool!
Neil Harbisson is used to people giving him puzzled sideways looks, especially at airports where his appearance has prompted officials to question him closely on more than one occasion. He can answer their questions quite blithely however. He is a cyborg – and that’s official.
Harbisson’s story is more than a little interesting. Born in 1982 to a British father and a Spanish mother he was diagnosed in his childhood with achromatopsia. This is a syndrome that has links to five separate diseases but for Harbisson it meant that he could only see the world in black and white.
Teased by his classmates he adopted only black and white clothing and when he went to study Fine Art at the Institut Alexandre Satorras he was given permission to only use black, white and their intermediate shades in his drawing. When in 2002 he moved to the UK to study at the Dartington College of Arts something happened that would change his life.
In his second year at the college he attended a cybernetics lecture given by Adam Montandon, who was a student at Plymouth University. After introducing himself to Montandon and explaining his condition the pair started to work on what became known as the eyeborg project.
What they came up with was a camera, mounted on Harbisson’s head that picks up colours and converts them in to sound waves. By memorising the different frequencies Harbisson became the first person in history with the ability to hear colors.
The eyeborg was further developed by Peter Kese, a Slovenian software developer. This further development meant that Harbisson can now perceive three hundred and sixty color hues through varying frequencies. Not only that by adjusting the volume levels accordingly he can also measure color saturation.
The eyeborg allowed Harbisson to experiment with color in his artwork. He first showcased these new painting in 2004 and has exhibited at the Royal College of Arts among many other places since then. Below is his take on Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3.
The paintings are certainly a new take on old subjects. Below, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor is converted in to color. Harbisson has also used his eyeborg to help him paint the colors of the capital cities of Europe as well as a host of celebrities. His sound portraits are created by listening to the colors of faces with his eyeborg and then translating these sounds on to canvas.
Then came the year in which Harbisson was obliged to renew his passport. British officials are notorious for their determination to disallow any objects other than a person’s face in to passport photographs.
Harbisson’s passport application was rejected on the grounds that his prosthetic was in the picture. There is a little irony here as Harbisson will not himself work from photographs when painting people - only real human faces as, it seems, photos produce different sounds.
So ensued months of letters of support from Doctors and educators which argued that Harbisson’s prosthetic device was, effectively, part of him. The officials relented and the eyeborg was allowed in to picture, so confirming officially Harbisson’s status as the first officially recognized cyborg in history.
