It doesn’t matter where you are, corporate America, FaceBook, an art marketing class, not to mention places where polarization is actually socially acceptable, such as baseball game, there are always people talking about them.  Them refers to anybody who has an ideological difference, physical difference, intellectual difference or hell, is a such a public and colossal screw-up that anyone can denigrate them and feel better about themselves based on a perceive moral, intellectual, physical or other “superiority.”

I would like to point out that we all are “that guy” at some time or another; we have all been the person who is the butt of the current joke and we have all been the person laughing at another’s pratfall.  Whereas this may be the natural state of being, being natural does not always reflect the better part of us.  We all stopped pooping in our pants at a very young age, and many of us have learned if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I am not saying all dialogue has to be Politically Correct, but we should have personal editors which keep us from crossing the blurry line between free expression and purely destructive voice.  Face it, if they knew everything we knew about a given topic, that does not mean that they would agree with us; and the converse is also true.

As for our little rock-throwing ids, we do have places to entertain our us versus them demons; sports competitions and other “games” where the goal is to be the best without really hurting anyone else in the process.  I think we developed games as a species because we recognized injuring our best and brightest in a match where they are not the very best or very brightest at the moment is not a viable survival strategy for the group.  Games and sports also should teach another lesson that is often lost, and that is, you win some, you lose some. 

 I guess what I am trying to say is once we have made our point, it may be time to moderate our inner firebrand and do something constructive instead; communicate in the language of co-operation, collaboration, and, yes, even compromise.  Problems are usually not solved while both sides are still throwing rocks at each other.

My two bits. Back in my hole now. 

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

Nevertheless I have chosen representations of words, rather than the words themselves, therefore their interpretation is still very much up to the viewer.  If you have a better story to go with a given painting, by all means use it. 

One of the questions I am asked over an over again is what is with all those zeros and ones.   Some people are astonished to learn they actually form words. ASCII Binary is a 2-state representation system.  In electronics, a lot of operations are predicated on whether something is off or on.  Off or On are two distinct possible states and binary encoding is specifically related to this 2-state system.   ASCII uses groups of 8 2-state bits, either zeros or ones, to represent the letters of the alphabet.  It is a very specific coding system, which is distinct from other binary coding systems; there are others.  In my works, each group of 8 zeros and ones also represent a single letter of the alphabet, or a number, or a character space  or punctuation.  This coded message is generally related to the subject of the painting and frequently represents the name of the painting. 

Very often people think binary is exclusively represented by zeros and ones.  But step outside the box; binary can be represented by any 2 states that are distinct.  In my painting ASCII Bird I represent 2 states using birds three different ways to convey three messages coded into the painting itself.  In 2nd Story Job I use rotations of b, and the color of b to represent three 2-state systems to convey three messages in the same string of characters. 

ASCII Binary representation in Jake Beckman's Binary Birds Paintings

In the image above I have taken the top line of code from ASCII Bird to show how, depending on what you are looking at, the birds represent “A”, “3″ or “n”.  I also have pulled binary from the painting, Avatar, to show the first letter in Avatar, “A”, is exactly the same representation as the Sitting/Flying of “A” in ACSII Bird.  Finally I detail the third character from Avatar, “a” to show a lower case “a” has a different 8-bit representation than capital “A”. 

So that is what is with all those zeros and ones in my paintings.  I hope this helps a little bit. 

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

The one you keep hearing about with respect to 2012 is the Long-Count calendar.  It apparently was used to mark events, and auspicious days on which to do monumental things- from what I can tell it is largely associated with architecture – you know pyramids, stella etc.  Just as we count time from before and after J.C., the Mayan long count calendar counts from zero around August 11 -3113 on the Julian Calendar, and about a month later if you go Gregorian (yes, that is more than 5000 years ago)

The Mayans used a vegisimal system of counting (base-20).  We use base-10, maybe Mayans counted on their fingers and their toes.  :)  They also seemed to like the number 13 too.  Anyway, the long count calendar is just Base 20 multiples with a one wrinkle-since a solar year is around 365 days, they dropped the second place holder to base-18 instead of 20 to make it match the solar year a bit better. See 20 x 20 is 400 which is about 10% longer than a year, but 18 x 20 is 360, which only misses the mark by about 2%, so the second place holder in the Mayan Long Count Calendar only counts to 17 instead of 19.  Before you wonder about the Mayans fudging their calender, remember, every four years we add a day to February to fudge our calendar.  The Mayan Long-Count calendar usually disregards the 5 extra “unlucky” days (the difference between 365 and 360) in the solar year-they didn’t fudge for them; I guess they decided 360 days was close enough and kept on counting.   

The current hype about December 21, 2010 is very much like the Y2K hype about going from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000.  It’s just a flipping of a bunch of vegisimal places to 0, while the highest place holder increments up one.  One question is whether the current cycle ends at 13th b’aktun (remember the Mayans had a thing for the number 13) or whether the b’aktun  keeps on counting to 19.   See December 20, 2012 is the very last day of the 13th b’aktun:  12.19.19.17.19 in terms of the Mayan system-if the highest place holder base twenty then the next day is merely the start of the 14^th b’aktun.  13.0.0.0.0, but if the highest place holder is base-13 then the long count must add another placeholder 1.0.0.0.0.0 and start counting b’aktun from zero too. 

 My understanding is that most stella and other things depicting the Long-Count Calendar do use base-20 for the b’aktun, the 5th place holder that counts the number of 400-year spans. The glyphs on some stella even predict events after the beginning of the 14^th b’aktun.  There is nothing to suggest the beginning of the 14^th b’aktun portends disaster-in fact it seems that flipping over of a b’aktun, which happens roughly every 400 years, would be considered auspicious and probably accompanied by celebration. 

One final note.  As I said the Mayan system is higher than base-10, so in order to depicted it properly you need a symbol for each new possible digit.  Computer engineers resolved this question easily substituting letters to symbolize digits higher than nine (some computing goes on with Base 16 – hexadecimal). Following the same procedure 12.19.19.17.19 becomes CJJHJ. E.g. 10 becomes A, 11 becomes B, 12 becomes C … 17 becomes H and 19 becomes J. 

Jake Beckman's representation of the Mayan Long Count Calendar.

And that is how I arrived at CJJHJ – because the next day will be either D0000 or 100000 depending on whether you thing the b’aktun is base-20 or base-13, but the 13^th b’aktun will be over. In my paintings on the subject I depict each place holder with a cog.  The place holders count out from the center. The vertical from the center to the top shows the “current” count, in this case CJJHJ the last day of the 13th B’aktun, which will occur December 20, 2012.  My representation uses base-13 for the B’aktun cog.  The very next click on the wheel of time would set each ring back to zero.

At the moment I am working on two different paintings which will contain this symbol, and indeed this image is a photo from one of the in-progress works.  The complexity of this symbol warranted a little extra explaination in my opinion.  Enjoy.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

I dunno, but I recently learned a new slang term, e-lationship.  It’s a cyber relationship, where friends, lovers and other strangers never meet face-to-face, they just carry on virtually, be it via FaceBook, Twitter, IM-ing, chat or what have you.  For years people have known that cyber cutie might be a three-hundred pound guy, an 84-year-old grandma, or a teenie bopper looking for a thrill.  But there is the whole other level I had not considered and that is people who really do not want to meet in person, but who feel fulfilled with a harem of cyber-mates.  e-lation, it’s a great punny in my opinion.

e-lation by Jake Beckman. Two cyber-canaries stare dreamily into each others eyes.

e-lation was a natural follow-on piece for the social media birds.  I have place two canaries staring dreamily into each others’ eyes-that alone should give pause for thought-after all you really can’t see the person on the other end of the wire.  The background is mottled, suggesting an insubstantial venue.  The birds are perched on a swirly, green, heart-shaped contour.  One half of the outline is overlaid with ASCII binary which reads e-lation.

I had a great deal of fun letting the acrylic flow in the background of this painting.  There was quite a bit of splattering, dripping, flowing and all sorts of uncontrolled activity, which contrasted strongly with painting binary on the heart outline (that took me three tries to find a good layout).  I hope you like it.

What do you think of the painting, or cyber relationships, or …?

Update: Details about e-lation, size etc., can be found on its art page at AKAJake.com

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

One thing made eminently clear to me as that I have to work on marketing myself.  So 2010 because the Year of Marketing for me.   I have made it my mission to deal with this deep dark hole in my business plan.

Its an scary proposition for an artist.  The accountant in me always has some ready accounting, tax, business, human resources factoid to whip out an a moments notice, but art is not easy to talk about. It is a visual medium.  So I guess I will be showing a lot more art in my blog in coming days.  If I can’t talk about it, at least you can look at it.

Then maybe something will occur to me.

On other fronts, I know I need to chose a style of the moment and develop it into a consistent body of work which makes the schizophrenic artist in me squirm.  “What do you mean I can’t do a landscape if  I want to?” Of course I can still do a landscape if I want, but I will be promoting something different  – probably – I haven’t made up my mind which body of work I am going to focus on yet. I am leaning toward my representational abstracts.  I have heard them described as mysterious. It sounds good anyway.

I also have a lot of work to do on the Social Media front.  Holy cow, I didn’t know there was so much of that out there.  Facebook Fan pages? Who knew?  Tweetmeme? Twollow? Tweetdeck?  RSS feeds?  It is overwhelming. But at least I know if I work it bit by bit, eventually a whole will emerge.

Also somewhere amidst this mental chaos I also have to continue to create.

Whoever said Art is not a real job?!

Got anything to say?  Would love to hear it.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

Today I have been reminded by someone very close to me about what he perceives to be all my failings to act in the past. I find the entire exercise unproductive. I am also finding it a negative experience as he goes on and on about it, which has been taking up far too much time in my brain housing group. Of course before he started nattering on I didn’t know what today’s blog was going to be about and now I do.

I can learn from the past to be sure, but I refuse to beat myself up about what may have been. The past is gone. Nothing I do today will change it.

I can only do what I do today. Sure I can make plans for tomorrow, but action only occurs in the present.

The first day to do anything is now. The first day to start that learning a new language, exercise program, diet, marketing plan, cooking class, get spending under control, start that painting, take up underwater-basket-weaving, or whatever evil little shoulda that is hanging out in your brain housing group is today. It is do or not do. TRY is the precursor to failure.

If you don’t do, “why not” can be a valid educational analysis but it should not stop you from acting tomorrow when tomorrow becomes today. “I failed to act yesterday” is not a reason to not act today. Nor is there a chastisement to be applied to the failure to act yesterday; “I failed to act yesterday” does not mean “I am a bad person” or “I am a failure”; it simply is, in the past, unchangeable. “I failed to act yesterday because I watched SciFi reruns all day” may be a call to change behavior, change priorities or whatever, but again it implies no value judgment in and of itself; it is a call to action.

Beware of the shouldas that do not properly belong to you. Some people live vicariously through other people and will implant shouldas in the unwary people they hold influence over. If you are a little pudgy, but not unhealthy, and someone is berating you about being fat maybe that is a shoulda you need to ignore. Maybe the proper shoulda on your list today is to tell your nag where to get off, or maybe it is just to ignore them.

I should blog more often (as a marketing tool) is one of the shouldas in my list, also I need to paint more, and I need improve on my marketing efforts in general. These artistic goal centric efforts are competing with a million other shouldas in my life. Prioritizing shouldas requires you to develop a selfish streak. I am no Objectivist, or Existentialist, but from the creative standpoint Ayn Rand or Søren Kierkegaard did present ideas that may resonate with you. If your true goal is to be an independent creative person, you must understand that those around you think you are nuts, wasting your time with pie-in-the-sky ideas, and need to find something sensible to do with your life. They are more than willing to load up your plate with well-intended should ofs. I believe that after satisfying your basic needs of food and roof-over-your-head, your next priority has to be creative goal-centric, not cleaning your house, fixing the drip in the kitchen faucet, responding to irrelevant email, blogging perhaps, dealing with continuous demands of significant others…

The act of creation is selfish; it is fulfilling a need in you that others may not understand.  These others are more than happy to convey to you their displeasure with your chosen path over and over again.  They will also remind you over and over again how your effort has failed in the past thus proving their thesis that you need to be doing something else; they, of course, will also tell you what that something else woulda, coulda, shoulda been.  If you have not done so already it is time to banish these unproductive ghosts from your mind.

So having completed my blog and marketing effort for the day, and banished my unproductive ghost via this blog, I will move on to other selfish pursuits in the now.

I am curious, having now espoused my philosophy regarding the creative effort, how do you make time for your art?

Yours in Art,

-Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

• The Natural Numbers, 1, 2, 3… are counting numbers that a child can figure out with their fingers and toes etc.  Depending on who is doing the definitions the natural numbers may or may not include the number 0,. Natural numbers do NOT include numbers such as that have digits after the decimal place such as 2.25 , nor do the natural numbers include negative numbers.
• Whole Numbers are the Natural Numbers plus Zero plus the Negative Counterparts of the Natural Numbers,  …-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3…; Whole Numbers are also called Integers.  Again Integers/Natural Numbers do NOT include numbers with digits after the decimal point.
• Rational Numbers are numbers that can be expressed as a ratio of two Integers (excepting division by zero), therefore are numbers like 1/1, 2/3, -5/8 etc.  Rational Numbers can include numbers whose decimal equivalent terminates such as -5/8 = -0.625, or numbers whose decimal equivalent does not terminate, but repeats instead such as 2/3=.66666…
• Irrational Numbers are numbers that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two Integers, for example, the square root of two.  Irrational numbers do not include numbers involving the Imaginary Unit.
• Complex Numbers are numbers numbers involving the square root of negative 1, also called the Imaginary Unit, i.  Numbers that are multiples of the imaginary unit are called Imaginary Numbers.
• Both Rational and Irrational numbers can be Algebraic.  An Algebraic Number is any number that can be found as a root of polynomial equation with Integer coefficients, such as the square root of 5, which would have the integer coefficient 2, or negative cube root of 10, which would have the integer coefficient -3.   Numbers like the square root of 2 are irrational numbers, but they are algebraic.  If n is the lowest possible degree of such a polynomial, the roots are algebraic of order n. The square root of two is algebraic in order 2, nevertheless the square root of two is an Irrational Number.
• Transcendental Numbers are NOT Algebraic.  The most famous transcendental numbers are Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and Euler’s Number, which is the base of the natural logarithms among other things.
• Just to complete the picture, Real Numbers are numbers that are NOT Complex Numbers.  They can included Rational and Irrational Numbers; they may be Algebraic or Transcendental.  Real Numbers cannot include numbers involving the Imaginary Unit, but Complex numbers can have Real Numbers as components.

Although some Transcendental Numbers, such as Pi and Euler’s Number are cool, they are not mystical, nor are they particularly rare; technically almost all Real and Complex Numbers are Transcendental, since the Algebraic Numbers are countable, but the sets of Real and Complex Numbers are uncountable. All Transcendental Numbers are Irrational, since all Rational Numbers are Algebraic, but NOT all Irrational Numbers are Transcendental as some Irrational Numbers are Algebraic (such as the square root of 2).

Now that some of language of numbers has been defined let’s consider the Golden Ratio, Phi. The Golden Ratio can be found in the proportions of the human body, the proportions of many other animals, plants, DNA, the solar system, art and architecture, music, population growth, the stock market.  It can derived mathematically, geometrically, or via the Fibonacci Series.

The Golden Ratio: the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger one equals the ratio of the larger one to the smaller one. Consider the whole length of something, lets call this length, C, where C is composed of two smaller unequal sections, A and B, such that C = A + B. Say B is the larger piece and A is the smaller piece. If C/B = B /A then the division of C into parts A and B is proportioned to the Golden Ratio.  This dimensioning considered most pleasing to the human eye, probably because these dimensions are found so frequently in nature. If (A+B)/B = B /A, then both equal Phi, the Golden Ratio.  Phi is approximately 1.6180339887498948482045868343…

Since the Golden Ratio, Phi, is the solution to the equation, x² - x-1 =0, which is Algebraic in order 2, Phi is NOT a Transcendental Number.

The Fibonacci Series is a series of numbers with a recursive relationship; it simply expressed as the sum of the preceding two numbers in the series: starting at 0 and 1, then the next number is 1=1+0, then number after that is 2=1+1, then 3=2+1, then 5=3+2, then 8=5+3, etc.  The first 20 terms of the Fibonacci Series are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181…

The Fibonacci Series also frequently occurs in nature. We have 2 hands, 5 fingers, each finger has 2 knuckles and 3 segments-all Fibonacci numbers. The number of flat surfaces on a banana – usually 3 or 5 – again a Fibonacci Number. Flower seed heads often have a certain number of spirals to pack seeds in such a manner that the seeds have the same amount of space-the number of spirals is usually a Fibonacci Number. Plants also frequently arrange their leaves according to the Golden Section; If the entire circumference is proportional to 1.618 then the angle of rotation is usually 0.618, which is the lesser of the sections in the Golden Ratio 1.618 = 1/0.618. When the lesser section refers to an angle of rotation it is called the Golden Angle. The tendency of plants to wind themselves using the Golden Angle and otherwise arrange themselves with Fibonacci numbers is called Phyllotaxis; an estimated 90% of plants exhibit the tendency.    But not all plants follow phyllotaxis, sometimes sweet peppers have 4 chambers instead of 3, some flowers have 4 petals, such as a fuchsia,  or 6 petals, such as a crocus. Still it would seem that the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci numbers must have a connection.

Indeed, the Golden Ratio, Phi, and the Fibonacci Series are intimately connected.  As the numbers in the Fibonacci Series increase, the ratio of successive terms tends toward a certain number and that number is the Golden Ratio; in mathematical terms the limit of the ratio of successive terms in a Fibonacci Series as the terms go to infinity is the Golden Ratio. Lets see this in action: Keeping 3 digits accuracy behind the decimal, the ratios of successive terms in the Fibonacci Series are  Undefined = 1/0 (division by zero is not permitted), 1.000 = 1/1, 2.000 = 2/1, 1.500 = 3/2, 1.667 = 5/3,  1.600 = 8/5,  1.625 = 13/8, 1.615 =21/13, 1.619 = 34/21, 1.618… 55/34, 1.618 = 89/55, 1.618 = 144/89 etc.  As you can see by the 9th iteration the ratios of successive terms of the Fibonacci series have converged to the Golden Ratio to 3 digits of accuracy behind the decimal.

From an artist standpoint using 1.618 as an approximation to the Golden Ratio should develop pleasing ratio in the scales most of us work in.  Therefore if you wish to section 36-inch-long canvas into the golden ratio then 36/1.618 = 22.25 inches will be the larger dimension and 36-22.25 =13.75 inches will be the smaller dimension. Also  22.25/13.75 = 1.618 as it should.

Yours in art – Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

But I digress, I really still am a beauty of the numbers gal.

So one problem, which is kind of like the problem of all problems, is the P verses NP problem.  What is P verses NP? In a nutshell, the big question is whether P = NP or P ≠NP;  if P = NP then every problem has a efficient solution and we can find it efficiently. One might postulate all problems are solvable in an infinite amount of time, but what good is that?  Only God, perhaps, has an infinite amount of time to solve problems; in the real world problems need to be solved in a finite and reasonable amount of time. The amount of time is the crux of P verses NP. Are problems really as complex as they appear? Is the only solution brute force over an infinite amount of time?

By way of example, consider we have a large number of wedding guests we need to seat at tables at the reception.  We might want to pair them up into groups of two people who like each other, so that no one is lonely.  In 1965 a guy named Jack Edmonds developed an efficient algorithm to solve this particular problem, and having an efficient algorithm means, among other things, you can feed it to a computer and solve the problem in a reasonable amount of time. Jack Edmonds pioneered the lingo for P verses NP.  Problems with efficient solutions are the “P”, in P verses NP.  This particular problem is called the “matching problem.”

But there are many other ways to seat our large number of wedding guests that are by far more difficult to solve.  Suppose we want to make groups of three wedding guests who like each other, OR large groups of wedding guests who like each other, OR we want to seat guests around a round table such that guests, who can’t stand each other, are not seated next to each other, OR group  three couples at the wedding with other couples in a mutually agreeable triads, OR the evil converse social science experiment where only guests who can’t stand each other are grouped together in one way or another (hey, maybe the wedding planner has a thing for the groom).  All the problems that have efficient, verifiable solutions are “NP”.

So if P = NP then every problem has an efficiently verifiable solution AND we can find it efficiently.  On the technical side, even if this statement is true, we still may not have the algorithm to efficiently solve a given problem. The P verses NP problem is an abstraction, therefore just because we may do something doesn’t necessary mean that we can…

Naturally this question has ramifications well beyond computing algorithms, such as mathematical proofs, encryption, DNA sequencing etc.

Why think about it at all?  The P verses NP problem is one of the seven Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize problems; solving it is worth $1,000,000.  Not a bad chunk of change, but also realize proving P = NP  might solve other Millennium Prize problems as well, each worth $1,000,000.  However you should know that many theorists believe P ≠NP. Don’t get your hopes up.